Growth and Decline
by Exileian
Summary: When Hannibal awakens an unspeakable evil, the monks are forced to turn to the last person they ever imagined they'd ask for help: Chase Young.
1. Chapter 1

In the darkness, it waited.

For thousands of years it had not-quite-slumbered in the blackness of the center of the earth, half in the engulfing heat and slow-moving magma, half in the spirit realms that hung just beyond the eyes of mortals. It had seldom moved in all that time but still, somehow, knew the goings-on of the worlds it existed in. It felt the flows of the earth shifting like the tides; it felt the evolution of good and evil spirits warring across universes. It knew, seemingly, everything.

Except the details.

In aeons past it had been free to shatter the stars and set worlds ablaze. Now it hung in eternal torpor, sleeping, waking, feeling, waiting.

And then, in the middle of it all, something shifted.

In the darkness, it _listened_.

.-.-

It wasn't often that they were sent out to get something other than Shen Gong Wu, but ever since Raimundo's promotion to Shoku Warrior and the battle that had come shortly after, the monks found themselves hurtling across the world in an effort to get non-Dashi-created relics with increasing frequency. Usually it was just a matter of collecting for protection, though sometimes Master Fung seemed reticent to tell them exactly _why_ they were going after this or that particular item. And Dojo was never any help, bribes or not. As such, none of them were in a good mood as Dojo soared over the mountaintops toward their next goal.

Raimundo, struggling to stay awake by means of being as obnoxious as possible, leaned against Dojo's neck and stared up at the passing clouds.

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"I said no!"

"Are we there _yet?_"

"For the hundreth time, _no!_ Now cut that out before I make you ride on my tail and believe me, that's always an unpleasant experience."

"Hey, I only asked three times." He flicked some invisible dust off one knee and glanced at his equally tired companions. "Dojo, _why_ are we going after this thing at six in the morning? Couldn't it wait until after breakfast? At least?"

"When Master Fung says we need to get cracking, we get cracking, okay? It's not my choice." Dojo angled himself slightly downward. "And by your definition, breakfast technically counts as lunch. Though I wouldn't have minded a morning snack myself."

Raimundo sighed heavily and shut his eyes against the searing morning light. When the Fung-meister said go, you went. When he said jump, you said how high … especially when you were a leader. He'd always loved being in control, but the level of responsibility the Shoku Warrior position entailed had come out of left field and hit him full in the face. And he wasn't even doing fewer chores!

A little further down the dragon's back, Kimiko rolled onto her side and propped her head up on one arm.

"We barely had time to get dressed, Rai. I couldn't even get a good wig on this morning. Breakfast was totally out of the question."

"Oh no," Raimundo muttered with a roll of his eyes, "not your _natural hair_, god forbid we see _that_."

Kimiko flicked a piece of scale debris at him with a scowl.

The argument might have continued had Dojo not suddenly jerked ninety degrees downward and plunged toward the earth, forcing them all to hold on or go flying off. The wind whipped at their faces - and so did the leaves once they broke through the forest canopy. A few wild jerks and awkward dodges later, Dojo hit the ground and slid to a stop at the edge of a clearing. The monks rolled off him in various states of distress.

"Dojo, next time you do that … _warn us_, okay?" Kimiko groaned, rubbing the ache of a vicious grip out of her hands.

"Sorry, kids. But I got a whiff of what we're looking for and didn't want to miss it." Dojo shrunk back to his standard serpentine size. "I've been practicing, you know."

"What? Your landing technique? 'Cause it _really_ needs work," said Raimundo's voice from somewhere in a bush.

"No, my _detecting_ skills, but thank you very much for the commentary." Dojo sniffed haughtily and made his way toward the clearing, nose in the air. "You never think you'll forget how to do it, but you do get rusty after a while. Especially with all the Shen Gong Wu focus we've had here."

Clay stood up and brushed himself off.

"That's great to hear, partner," he said, "but Rai's got a point - your landin' was about as smooth as a winged pig's."

"Thank _you_ too, Clay."

The clearing wasn't all that clear; there was a lot of tall grass, a number of thin saplings, and here and there were hollowing stumps. The overgrowth from the surrounding forest was reaching in just enough to cast sun-speckled shadows around the edges but still left an open patch of sky - perfect to illuminate and sparkle off the edge of an ancient relic.

"I thought your landing was highly acceptable, Dojo! Although the descent was … unpleasant." Omi leapt onto the nearest stump and peered around the clearing. "But you can work on that later. What are we looking for?"

Dojo grumbled under his breath and fished out a slim scroll from the recesses behind his ear.

"Unappreciative teenagers … okay, we're looking foooorrrr … according to this, it's a silver arrowhead, about two inches long, one and a half wide. Should be in pretty good condition."

"We're looking for an _arrowhead_? That's gonna take forever!"

"Then we must waste no time! Let us each take a quarter of the field!"

"Hey, Omi. I'm the leader, here, remember?"

"Ah, yes … " A touch sullenly, Omi turned to face Raimundo and folded his arms across his chest. "Then what do _you_ want to do, Raimundo?"

Raimundo eyed Omi skeptically, then shrugged.

"Actually, your idea's pretty solid. Let's go with that."

They started to search the clearing, prodding at every possible rabbit hole and under every rock. The clouds passed over the sun; in the distance, they heard the low rumble of civilization.

Dojo, meanwhile, preened on a rock.

"Dojo, are you sure of what we're looking for?" Omi asked after an unsuccessful hour of searching.

"Absolutely! I got Master Fung's word for it! He wrote these instructions _himself_." Dojo opened the scroll again almost lovingly. "He wouldn't tell us something was here if it wasn't. Unless it moved and he didn't know it."

"Dojo … "

"Oh, come on, have we ever been in the wrong place before?"

"Maybe not," interjected Raimundo, "but usually we pick the wrong time. I'm half expecting Katnappe to show up, or worse - "

"_Attention has-beens!_"

The voice cut across the clearing accompanied by a loud buzzing. Everyone turned to see a figure hovering in midair, his posture radiating arrogant pride and his grin well-rehearsed every morning in front of the mirror.

" … Jack Spicer," finished Raimundo with a heavy sigh.

"That's right! Say it with fear, Xiaolin losers, because I'm here to show you the meaning of losing once and for all!"

"I think you've demonstrated that way too many times already, Spicer," Kimiko said with a smirk.

"Hey, I mean that _you're_ going to lose! Don't try and be witty!"

"You know, buddy, you'd be a lot more intimidatin' if you hadn't buttoned your underpants into your jacket," Clay said, tipping his hat up.

"What? Where?"

As Jack frantically scrabbled at his trench coat's buttons, Raimundo whipped out his arms and hurled a blast of air at him, sending him freewheeling up and over the trees with a scream. It wasn't enough to send him crashing into the forest, but it did give them a moment to get ready for a fight.

"Really funny, cowboy! Jack-bots! _Attack!_"

The robots rose out of the trees, engines whirring and chasses gleaming in the overcast light. The monks flung themselves into the fray with their Wudai Weapons in hand.

The fight itself didn't take very long; for all his seemingly bottomless funds and constant access to advanced technology, Jack hadn't improved the basics of his Jackbots in a very long time. The upgraded AI still couldn't match up to human ingenuity and the excessive weapons upgrades wound up being too slow to hit a moving target. The one advantage they had was in sheer numbers: no matter how many the monks took down, it seemed like another five showed up to take their place.

In the midst of the chaos, Jack raced down to the clearing and started crawling on his hands and knees through the grass.

Raimundo leapt from robot to robot, letting the ones chasing him do the actual destruction for him. He twisted a wind current and surfed behind a line of distracted Jackbots while another three tried to shoot him out of the sky. The explosions pushed him faster and further and rained metal and oil down on the clearing below, and he whooped triumphantly - recovering just in time to avoid a blast of fire from his left.

"Oi, Kimiko, watch it!"

"Sorry! Didn't see you coming!" Another pillar of flame shot up and knocked a handful of robots into a smoldering pile of wreckage. Across the way, Clay hurled Jackbots into the sky with a mighty stomp, and Omi short-circuited them with a blast of water from his ever-present Orb of Tornami. The destruction went on for a few minutes more before, finally, the buzzing of the robots stopped, replaced by sparks and sizzling as the Jackbots twitched even after their dismemberment.

Jack suddenly yowled in victory.

"A-_ha!_ I found it! I found the - wait, this is a piece of a Jackbot."

The four monks closed in on him, and he glanced up as shadows fell across him.

" … hey, why aren't you fighting? I had like a hundred Jackbots hidden in … the … "

He screamed as he went flying straight up, only to come back down with his coat caught on a branch.

"Another win for the good guys," said Kimiko, dusting off her hands.

"But now we're lookin' for a needle in a haystack. If it's a silver arrowhead, and all his robots are silver, then this just got harder'n a desert after a drought."

Raimundo looked around at the scattered debris and groaned.

"Oh, man, he's right. This is going to take years!"

"Or not!"

Omi suddenly surfaced from the middle of the clearing, something silver in his hand. Unlike the polished metal of the Jackbots, it didn't so much reflect the sun as absorb it, glowing dully in Omi's hands.

"Hey, way to go! Where was it?"

"It was buried! One of the fallen Jackbots ripped up the ground and revealed it." Omi examined the arrowhead carefully. "It looks very old, and very sharp."

"No kidding." Dojo wrapped himself around Omi's neck and poked the tip of the arrowhead. "It's - ow! - it's a weapon, kiddo, they're supposed to be sharp."

"This is so _unfair!_" cried Jack from where he was dangling. "Hannibal said this would be easy!"

Five heads snapped up to look at him, gazes suddenly sharp.

"Hannibal Bean? He knew about this? Why did he send you? Tell us, _now!_"

"Give me a reason why I should, Cueball!"

Omi handed the arrowhead to Raimundo and bounded up into the tree, leaning heavily on the branch suspending Jack. It creaked threateningly, ready to snap at any given moment.

"Now, Spicer, tell us why you're here!"

"Okay! Okay! Just step back off the branch!" The terrified squeak in Jack's voice died down as Omi grabbed a higher branch and hung from it. "Hannibal told me to get over here and look for an arrowhead. He didn't say why and he didn't give me any time to get ready. Speaking of that, do you guys have, like, a granola bar or something? I'm starving."

"What would Hannibal want with an arrowhead?" asked Kimiko as Omi dropped back down the tree and rejoined them.

"Uh … hey, did you hear me?"

"I don't know. But if Hannibal's involved, it can't be good." Raimundo shifted the arrowhead from hand to hand. "He must be planning something."

"Hello? Guys? Starving!"

"Master Fung'll want to know about this. D'you think he knew when he sent us?"

"Maybe, but don't you think he would have told us?"

"Master Fung's not always the clearest when it comes to instructions." Clay, forever gloved, took the arrowhead from Raimundo and stored it safely in a pouch on his belt.

"And I'm still hanging from a tree, you know!"

"I'm sure if it was important, he would have told us. Me, anyway," said Dojo, but he sounded troubled. "We should get back ASAP."

"Oh, _come on!_ This is cruel and unusual!"

Dojo grew to his larger size, and the monks climbed on. They vanished into the sky a few moments later.

"Jerks," grumbled Jack, and then screamed as the tree branch finally snapped and dropped him twenty feet to the ground.

.-.-

"Well done, young monks," said Master Fung as he carried the arrowhead to a small drawer in one of the temple's musty back rooms. "It isn't extremely critical, but it's good to know that Fengmeng's Arrowhead is away from evil's grasp."

Nobody said anything until Kimiko elbowed Raimundo in the ribs.

"Oh, uh, hey, Master Fung, speaking of evil … "

"Yes?"

"Why'd you send us out to get that? Like, was there a reason, or were we just collecting it?"

Master Fung gently closed the drawer and turned to look at the four monks, his hands in his sleeves.

"I sent you because word reached me that Hannibal Roy Bean was searching for it."

They glanced at each other.

"We ran into Jack while we were out there," Raimundo continued. "Not Hannibal. But he said Hannibal sent him without saying why."

"Hmmm."

The elder monk looked at the far wall, apparently deep in thought. Then he gestured for the monks to follow him as he made his way out of the back room.

"I don't know what purpose Hannibal would have in sending Jack to fetch this relic," he said slowly, "but it isn't very suspicious that he wouldn't tell Jack what his reasons are. However, it does make me wonder if this whole ordeal was nothing more than a distraction for a greater, more evil scheme."

"You think we were tricked?" asked Omi.

"There is always the possibility. Evil, after all, is often inscrutable."

Master Fung passed by storage room after storage room, heading for the main hall as he spoke.

"I was informed of Hannibal's search by a messenger from a sister temple, but now that you've brought me this information, I believe that courier may have been tricked as well … or perhaps he was Hannibal in disguise." He pulled a scroll out of his pocket and looked it over, squinting closely at the signature. "I can't be sure. I'll go see what I can find out, and will tell you as soon as I learn anything more."

They watched him depart, Dojo hastily slithering after him.

"Well," said Raimundo, hands behind his head, "guess that's us off the hook for today. Who wants pancakes?"

Within the hour, all four of them had cooked up a substantial breakfast and were sitting around the table eating. They'd set aside a spot for Dojo, but he hadn't arrived, and despite Omi's half-hearted searching, they couldn't find him either.

"He's probably still with Master Fung. No need to worry about it," Clay reassured Omi, who was torn between being unnerved by Dojo's absence at a meal and delighted at the opportunity to have seconds for once.

"You're probably right. Still, it's not like him to skip a full meal."

"Especially not when we made him egg-and-cheese wontons," said Kimiko, delicately picking one off the set-aside plate for herself.

"I'm sure he'll smell the food and show up sooner or later. And if not, he gets cold leftovers." Raimundo tipped the last of the fruit salad onto his plate. "You know, this could really use some papayas."

"They're expensive, Rai. They don't grow around here."

"So why don't we just go get some? I mean, we've got a dragon who can fly us halfway around the world in less than an hour to go fight No-Brains Spicer over a 1,500 year old trinket, but we can't stop off in Rio for half an hour to grab a fruit basket?" He held up his hands in defeat. "Totally stupid."

"It would not be proper to ask Dojo to go on errands like that," said Omi primly, balancing carefully on the stack of books needed for him to be able to see over the table. "Even if you think it would be worthwhile, going to buy fruit is an excess."

"I don't see how he could turn down food."

The rest of the day was quiet and almost unusually uneventful. Aside from training and taking their usual procrastination breaks, they finished their chores and lounged around outside, staring up at the slowly-darkening sky as the sun set and the clouds rolled in. It looked almost like a thunderstorm was coming in, but according to Kimiko, the weather forecast wasn't predicting any rain.

They went to bed that evening without much on their minds, and during the night, none of them had any dreams.

Mostly because they didn't need to.

.-.-

At midnight, lightning cracked across the sky, thunder rumbled into the depths of the earth, and a wave of dark energy pierced the spiritual realms.

In the Xiaolin temple, Master Fung gave a start and splattered ink across the text he was writing, staring out the window in sudden surprise.

In the high mountaintop temple, Master Monk Guan snapped awake in an instant, his eyes fixed on the skylight above.

Lingering by a pool in the lair she'd acquired from an ancient ruin, Wuya nearly fell into the water out of sheer startled shock.

And in his far western lair, Chase Young was drawn from peaceful meditation to full realization in a split second, his eyes opening and his pupils thinning to nearly-invisible slits in furious dread.

.-.-

The monks were roughly awoken early the next morning by the sound of Dojo coming in for a rough landing outside the temple.

"Ugh … what time is it?" asked Clay, rubbing his eyes with a hand.

"Early," said a muffled Raimundo.

"Too early," Kimiko added. "My phone says six thirty."

"Why can't we ever sleep in anymore? Is it because I'm a Shoku Warrior? I renege my position if that's the case."

"Well, nobody's here to wake us up, so it probably doesn't involve us."

"If there's a lot going on, it's _going_ to involve us."

Omi, who had less problems with early waking, got dressed and made his way out of the dormitory to see what was going on. The early-rising monks were doing their morning rituals as usual, but there was a tension in the air that reminded him of so many past events: of Wuya's return to her human body, of Mala-Mala Jong's recreation, of the moment he'd snatched the Ying Yo-Yo from Chase's hand all those months ago.

He searched for Master Fung and found him in the temple's meditation room. Quietly he joined him, sitting down on the opposite side of the mat, and waited. After a minute or two, Omi cleared his throat, but it seemed that Master Fung already knew he was there.

"You're up early, Omi."

"We heard something going on outside. Has something happened, Master?"

Master Fung looked up at Omi and was silent for a few long seconds before shaking his head with a sigh.

"I'm afraid so, young monk. But I cannot tell you just yet what happened. Go back to bed, and I will come get all of you when it's time."

Unnerved, Omi stood and bowed, then made his way back to the dormitory where the sound of snoring told him that Raimundo had gone back to sleep already. Kimiko and Clay were still awake, though, and leaned out of their rooms to look at him.

"Well? Did you hear anything?" Kimiko asked.

"Master Fung said something happened," he said, "and the air feels … tense. I believe we may be in for something very unpleasant later today."

"Rai had it right," said Clay, sitting back on his mat. "If it's somethin' big, it's probably end of the world stuff. We'll definitely be involved."

"Great," Kimiko grumbled, vanishing back under her covers. "Might as well get in a little sleep before then."

Omi found he couldn't go back to sleep, so he meditated instead. But even that was difficult, as the sound of hurried footsteps and whispers just low enough to be inaudible plagued him no matter how much he tried to clear his mind. Eventually he gave up altogether and went with Clay to get breakfast - cold rice out of the refrigerator and some leftover wontons Dojo had somehow missed.

Kimiko joined them an hour later; Raimundo, an hour after that. They were all uneasy and everyone was ignoring them, which, while not entirely unusual, was still off-putting. Dojo took off and landed in the courtyard several times, sometimes with a person on his back, sometimes not. At one point Raimundo glanced out the window and gave a start.

"Hey - isn't that Master Monk Guan?"

They all looked out and saw the telltale flash of orange robes that Guan always wore disappearing into the temple.

"If Master Monk Guan is here, then the situation must be most serious."

"This ain't good." Clay shuffled the cards he'd brought for a third time. "I feel like a cattle in a slaughterhouse pen right about now."

"Oh, come on, guys," Raimundo suddenly said, leaning back in his chair. "It's probably just another super-serious end-of-the-world scenario. We've been through these before at least five times. Everyone gets all worked up and then we go in and kick butt! It's not gonna be a problem, trust me."

"I dunno, Rai. This could be the one time it _is_ a problem." Kimiko leaned on an arm and eyed him skeptically. "Why else would Master Monk Guan be here?"

"Because everyone else thinks it's serious. Look, guys, we've saved the world before and we'll do it again. This is nothing new."

The words had barely left him when a monk arrived at the kitchen door and told them that Master Fung needed to speak with all of them, and urgently. With a shared look of concern between them (even Raimundo's bravado faltered for the moment), they warily made their way to the main hall, where Master Fung and Master Monk Guan were waiting for them.

The normal greetings seemed to fade in importance as they approached; normally, they would have been excited to see their former teacher back at the temple. But the expressions on the two men's faces gave them pause, and they stopped a few feet away.

"Master Fung, Master Monk Guan," said Omi tentatively. "You wished to speak with us?"

"Yes, young monks," began Master Fung. "I'm afraid I have very grave news concerning the state of the world - and the universe itself.

"My concerns about yesterday's possible deception were confirmed. Hannibal Roy Bean had no need for Fengmeng's Arrowhead - he sent word to us and sent Jack in an effort to distract us from his true goal. Because we were intent on stopping him from gaining one relic, he was able to access a different one … a much more powerful one."

"Last night, you may have felt a troubled in your dreams, or woken to a peal of thunder," Master Monk Guan continued. "That was Hannibal reaching an ancient holy relic known as the Pan Gu Shards - rumored to be the shards of the egg the creator Pan Gu first slept in and later used to create the Heavens and the Earth. Whether or not they are the real thing, they are nonetheless a very powerful artifact, and in the wrong hands, they could be used to end the world - or worse."

"But … how did he get to them? Weren't they protected?" asked Kimiko, slightly shocked.

"They were. They were buried deep in the earth, beyond the reach of mortal hands, but Hannibal is a vicious and clever being. How exactly he got to them, we don't know, but he cannot have access to them for very long, or he may use them for unspeakably nefarious deeds." Master Fung sighed heavily.

"So … you want us to go find him and get them back? Can do," said Raimundo, though his confidence was somewhat tempered.

"No, Raimundo. None of you are prepared to try and face him when he has access to this power - not even a Shoku Warrior has the skill to do so." Guan glanced away. "Shamefully, even I cannot consider attacking him directly."

The monks fell into a stunned silence.

"We believe," continued Master Fung, straightening his shoulders, "that he intends to awaken an entity of pure and baseless evil with the Shards. Our only advantage in this matter is that this awakening will take him a significant amount of time and energy, which allows us a sliver of hope in preparing to defeat him. As such, during this time, the four of you - who are our greatest hope - will be sent away to train again. Under this teacher, you will improve your fighting skills, learn new techniques, master your elemental control, and learn to confront the darkness that exists in your hearts."

"The darkness? But Master Fung - " began Omi.

"There is darkness in the heart of every man, woman, and child," Master Fung gently interrupted. "It is not always a mark of evil."

Raimundo shifted uncomfortably.

"But … this teacher - Master Monk Guan, will you be teaching us?" Omi asked, turning to look at Guan expectantly.

"No, Omi, I'm afraid not."

"Then who is it?"

Guan looked over the monks silently for a moment, as if judging their expectations, before finally speaking.

"Chase Young," he said.


	2. Chapter 2

The silence in the main hall lingered for several long, awkward moments before Raimundo laughed nervously.

"You're not serious."

"I'm very serious," Master Monk Guan said, his hands clasped behind his back.

"But - he's evil!" Kimiko shot out. "Pure, 100%, Grade-A evil! We fight him all the time! He absolutely hates us!"

"I am aware of that. I've known him for a very long time," Guan said quietly. "But I have already been to speak with him, and he has agreed to it, however reluctantly."

"But what could that varmint have to teach _us_?" Clay asked, his voice tinged with anger. "We already know how to fight and use our Shen Gong Wu, and we've used 'em to beat him plenty!"

"In terms of skill, he is still superior to you four in many ways," Guan explained. "He can teach you to further your martial arts skills in ways that I cannot, and as he was once a Xiaolin Dragon-in-Training himself, he knows the aspects of elemental mastery nearly as well as any of us."

"But why can't you teach us, Master Monk Guan?" Omi finally asked, clearly troubled by the whole affair - and not for all the same reasons as his fellow monks. "You are a grand and powerful monk yourself, and you have taught us very well in the past!"

"Because what you face is not something I can truly combat."

Master Fung waited a moment for any further interjections before speaking. His voice was calm and soothing, if still firm.

"I know this is hard to consider, Dragons, but if we wish to have a chance of saving the world and more from utter destruction, you will have to go and learn from one of our enemies. He has sworn on his honor as a warrior not to bring great harm to or kill any of you or to attempt to undermine our efforts. The danger we face is just as much of a threat to him as it is to us."

"I will accompany you to his lair," said Master Monk Guan a moment later. "After that, he will be your teacher until he believes you are prepared to face Hannibal and the evil he's awakening."

"Dojo isn't coming with us this time?" asked Omi.

"No, I'm afraid that his life would be in significant peril if he was with you," Master Fung admitted. "Master Monk Guan will check in on you from time to time to ensure that your learning is progressing steadily, and that you aren't being mistreated."

"What level of mistreatment are we talking here? Full out beatings, or just a little starvation and sleep deprivation?" Raimundo's tone was bitter and snide, but Master Fung only shook his head.

"Promise me that you will learn well, young monks, for this is an evil unlike any you have ever faced."

"Yes, Master Fung," said the four, a little sullenly.

.-.-

"This is stupid," grumbled Raimundo as they started packing their bags. "Total bull! How can they think we're not ready to fight the bean? We've taken him down before!"

"It is not Hannibal they think we can't fight, Raimundo." Omi laid out his spare clothing on his mat and carefully started rolling it up. "And while I agree that this is most unusual, we shouldn't argue with Master Fung's decision."

"Or Master Monk Guan's." Clay put a pair of boots in his bag and shoved them down as hard as he could. "They've been listenin' to the spirits, so - we don't have much ground to walk on."

"But why Chase? Why do they think it's even a remotely good idea to send us anywhere near him except to kick butt?"

"He gave his word, Raimundo." Omi's voice was quiet. "In all the times we've fought him, whenever he has given his word, he's kept to it."

"But he's good at being underhanded. I'm sure there's some clause in there that he designed for a loophole. I mean, his definition of 'great harm' is probably in another dictionary from ours!"

"Quit whining, Rai." Kimiko tossed a towel at his head. "I'm exactly as excited as you are about this, and I really don't want to 'confront the darkness in my heart'," she said, complete with air quotes, "especially given who's involved, but complaining isn't going to help. Besides, if he tries anything? We'll just beat him into submission like every other time."

"I'm not worried that we won't be able to beat him. What I'm worried about is waking up with one of my legs being used as a chew toy for those cats of his."

"Rai, that's gross!"

"And I think that falls under anybody's definition of 'great harm'," Clay added.

"I'm just saying."

The rest of their packing went with only a modicum of grumbling, but soon enough they were ready to go - with the exception of one thing. They gathered their bags and headed for the temple vault, where Master Fung was waiting for them.

"We're ready to go, Master Fung. All we need now is our Wu, and we are prepared to depart."

"I'm afraid you won't be taking any of the Shen Gong Wu with you, Omi," said Master Fung, turning to face them.

" … what?"

"As part of your training, you can no longer depend on the Wu to help you fight. This is both something the temple requires of its trainees, though in my opinion it would come at a much later time, and a requirement Chase asked of us when he agreed to teach you." He held out a hand to them. "This means your Elemental Shen Gong Wu and Wudai Weapons as well."

"But - we've only just really started using them!" Omi gaped at his mentor. "We need to take them! They're what lets us access our elements to the fullest extent!"

"Nonetheless, you cannot bring them with you. Adversity is a mountain that we all must climb to reach our greatest achievements."

"You _really_ aren't serious," Raimundo said hollowly.

Master Fung just looked at him.

Slowly, and with no little reluctance, all four of them handed over their carefully-packed Weapons and watched mournfully as a monk carried them down into the vault to rest safely beside their Elemental Shen Gong Wu. Master Fung turned back to them and smiled very slightly.

"It will be hard, but you have gone through trials before and each time I have seen you grow to meet those challenges. Remember that you are the greatest hope this world has, and that all of us are counting on you … and that we all believe in you."

"Thank you, Master Fung," said Omi, picking up his bag and trying to match his mentor's smile.

They headed out of the temple, where Dojo and Master Monk Guan were waiting for them. They climbed onto the dragon's back and looked around at the temple courtyard one last time: at the walls just fading from their morning gold to the midday off-white as the sun rose over the mountains, at the fountain spilling water in elegant streams down into the pool, at the pathways and training grounds studded with damage from where their training had gone awry.

"Don't look so down, kids." Dojo shifted underneath them, readying himself for the long flight west. "I'm sure you'll be back here sooner that you think. And don't worry about things getting moved around; this place never changes."

"We're a little more worried about _us_ changing," Kimiko said as she tied her bags down.

"Hey, you never know. You might not change much. Or you might change for the better." He paused. "Though we are dealing with the guy who eats innocent dragons for breakfast … and lunch … and probably dinner, too … "

"Thanks for the comfort, Dojo."

"Uggh." Dojo glanced over his shoulder at the assembled monks. "Everybody ready?"

"Ready as we'll ever be."

With a lurch that nearly knocked everyone back to the ground, Dojo took off, cutting through the morning mists and into the clouds. As they flew, Omi shuffled up closer to Master Monk Guan, his trepidation at their near future momentarily overridden by curiosity.

"Master Monk Guan?"

"Yes, Omi?" Guan turned, his expression as calm as ever.

"I am curious - how did you convince Chase Young to do this? The last time you two met, he seemed to truly want to destroy you."

Raimundo glanced up from where he was dozing; Kimiko turned her attention from her phone; Clay tilted his hat up just enough to see the others. Guan looked them over again before turning fully to face them.

"As I've told you in the past, he and I were once very close friends. Before he fell to the Heylin side we were Dragons-in-Training alongside Dashi at the old Xiaolin Temple. It's true that, ever since, he and I have tried to defeat each other whenever we meet, but his hatred for me doesn't even come close to his loathing for Hannibal and everything that demon stands for. He knows what's waiting in the future if Hannibal is left unchecked, and that knowledge is just enough to push him into a tenuous alliance with us.

"I cannot say he was particularly happy to do so," Guan finished, gazing out over the passing mountains, "but, nonetheless, he agreed."

"I'm more surprised that he didn't sic his cats on you right off the bat," said Raimundo. "That's usually what he does."

"Do you think he agreed out of selfishness," asked Omi, and then, more eagerly, "or do you believe he has realized the faults of his evil ways and decided to turn back to good?"

Guan chuckled and patted Omi's head.

"Your optimism is heartwarming, Omi, but I don't believe anything in the world could change his mind after all this time. He is ultimately a self-serving man, even if his goals do sometimes align with ours."

Omi sagged slightly. Raimundo snorted and rolled onto his back.

"I don't know why you're so dedicated to finding something good in him. The guy's a jerk."

"Still. He has not always been pure evil when we've faced him."

Kimiko looked at Omi's slumped shoulders and not-so-subtly jabbed her foot into Raimundo's side, making him yelp.

"I'm a little worried that he's going to try and convert Omi to the dark side again," she said. "Just because he promised not to hurt us doesn't mean he's not going to try to trick us."

"That's true," Guan agreed, "and I have my own concerns about that. But preventing him from getting into your minds is a responsibility the four of you must take on. Remain vigilant, and you will not need to worry."

"I'm not worried about that." Clay sat up straighter and clapped his hands together. "The only time he got Omi was because of tellin' lies and playin' us for fools, and we got you back in the end, didn't we, partner?"

"Yes, that is true … "

"So we're not gonna fall for that a second time. We're stronger and smarter than before, and whatever he tries, we'll give it a good lookin'-at before we try anything. He ain't got a chance."

"It's good to be confident," Guan said with a smile, "and you are very right. Still, be diligent."

Dojo swept over the lands and through the clouds, and soon enough they were soaring over the bleak, deserted wastelands of the west. The dark, jagged mountains loomed in the distance, shrouded by storm clouds that never broke and wreathed by smoke and mists. As they got closer, the glow of Chase's palace grew clearer.

"A big black mountain with a fiery demon face carved into it." Raimundo leaned over Dojo's side and grimaced at the sight. "He really doesn't know how to do subtle, does he."

"I don't think he was lookin' for subtle when he made that."

They landed on the rocky outcrop that lead into the mountain proper. The monks collected their bags; Dojo shrunk to standard size and immediately clung to Omi's neck. Guan approached the blank mountain face and knocked twice on it, then stepped back; after a moment, the flicker of an outline appeared, and a door sunk into the stone below, allowing them to step into the monstrous mouth and pass down the rocky throat to the center of the lair.

"This place always gives me the creeps," Dojo muttered, glancing at the flickering torches on the reddish walls. "It feels like he's trying to imply something, and I really don't like it."

"What, like we're all going to get eaten?"

"Yeah! That."

They made their way into the main room of the lair, which, as always, was highly impressive. The greens and blues contrasted sharply with the hellish entrance, and underneath the sound of falling water was the unmistakable low rumble of a volcano forever ready to erupt.

At the top of the nearby staircase stood an unmistakable silhouette. It started down the stairs toward the monks, who instinctively grouped together just behind Guan.

"I am so not looking forward to this," Kimiko mumbled under her breath.

"_Now_ look who's whining."

"So," said Chase Young as he descended, his tone dry and bored, "the prodigal children arrive."

"They are here for your instruction, and no more." Guan didn't move from where he stood. "As we arranged."

"Of course. I assume the dragon has no intention to stay."

"No. He will be returning to the temple with me."

"A shame." Chase stepped to the ground, hands clasped behind his back, and observed Guan and the scowling monks. His expression was flat, but there was a hint of a sneer at the corner of his mouth. "I could have used a late night snack."

Dojo vanished into one of Omi's sleeves completely.

"Remember the terms of our agreement," warned Guan, and Chase snorted.

"I don't think I could possibly forget. You may leave them with me, Master Monk, and rest assured that I'll give them back whole and hale."

Guan turned to the monks, smiling slightly after a moment.

"I'll be back in a week or so to check on your progress," he said. "Remember to keep yourselves focused and alert, and learn well."

"Yes, Master Monk Guan." Omi - and after a moment, the other three - bowed to him. "We will look forward to seeing you again. Very soon."

"And me!" Dojo slithered out of Omi's sleeve to grab him in as massive a hug as he could manage. "I'll be back too! To make sure none of your innocent little minds have been corrupted … "

"We'll be fine, Dojo," Raimundo said, only to be nearly throttled by Dojo's sudden leap hug attack.

"They always say that!" He grabbed Kimiko in a similar hug, and then Clay, before finally blowing his nose on a tissue and clambering back to Guan. "Good luck, kids. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Doesn't narrow it down, yo."

Dojo gave Raimundo a final glower before Guan turned and departed, taking him along. As soon as they'd passed through the entryway, the massive oak door slammed shut behind them, leaving the four Dragons-in-Training trapped in the massive lair of a warlord prince of evil.

"What did he mean by 'they always say that'?" Clay wondered aloud.

Chase watched them from the bottom of the stairs for a few long moments before turning his back to them.

"Follow me."

Hesitantly, the four grabbed their bags and headed for the stairs.

.-.-

Chase lead them into a small room, shrouded in more dark colors than the blues and greens of the rest of the lair, and sat down at a small, nearly floor-level table in the center. They joined him after a moment, nearly leaping up again when a tiger padded into the room with a laden tray in its mouth. But all it did was set the tray on the table before disappearing again, and then, even more surprisingly, Chase picked a teapot up off the tray and began to pour it into five small cups.

Nobody said a word as he did this, and he remained silent until he'd set the teapot down and lifted his cup.

"It isn't poisoned."

Warily, they reached for their own cups.

"Can't blame us for being worried," Raimundo said.

"I gave my word to your masters that I wouldn't kill you, and even if I _did_ plan to shed what honor I have by going back on that, I wouldn't do it by something as merciful as poison." He fixed Raimundo with a dark look. "And, frankly, I wouldn't waste my honor on the four of you."

"Uh … thanks?"

"Don't bother." Chase sipped at his tea, ignoring how Clay nearly choked on the bitterness of his own. "Allow me to make this painfully clear: I am not interested in teaching any of you my skills and techniques or imparting any of my knowledge onto you. I am very nearly digging my own grave by doing this, but by _not_ doing it, I actively dig it instead. I am doing this for one reason, and one reason alone: to stop Hannibal from turning the world into a string of molten, lifeless meteors."

"I would've thought you'd be all over an opportunity like this." Raimundo, who hadn't touched his tea, gave Chase a calculating look. "An incredibly powerful ancient relic and an unspeakable sleeping evil? Sounds like your kind of thing."

"You don't listen well, do you," said Chase, the sneer from before coming back in almost full force. "That worthless bean's success means the _end_ of the world. My intention has always been to _rule_ the world. I can't rule what isn't there."

"And the relic? Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't want that."

"Oh, there's all sorts of things I could do with those shards." There was a barely visible hint of razor-sharp teeth in Chase's sneer. "I could remake the world as I saw fit and alter time to my liking, or so the rumor goes. They are an undeniably powerful artifact. But they, at the moment, are not the concern. We don't know where they are or where Hannibal is hiding. The Xiaolin Temples are working on finding that out, and have sloughed you off on me in the meantime since you are clearly the only hope the world has for survival."

"And I don't understand why we have to learn from you." Clay carefully cleared his throat to get rid of the last bitterness in it. "You're an evil genius with no likin' for any of us or our actions. Master Monk Guan said that he couldn't teach us, but you could. It don't make no sense to me."

Chase glanced at him and raised a condescending eyebrow.

"Because he's right. There's no possible way he could teach you to defeat what we might be facing. All your training and moral righteousness would falter and crumble in a matter of seconds. On the other hand, _I_ couldn't stand up to it, either. Ideally, a Xiaolin Dragon would be sent to take care of this, but given that you four are the closest things we have … maybe four apprentices will do the trick instead. Though I doubt it."

"Then what will you be teaching us?" Omi asked before anyone could interject.

"I'm sure they told you."

"Fighting skills, elemental control, and facing the darkness in our hearts," said Kimiko, scowling.

"Really. I have no real interest in the contents of the hearts of a handful of teenage apprentice monks. What I will teach you, aside from how to fight without the use of magic toys, is how to confront the darkness that comes with the elements you wield - which I suppose concurs with your hearts as well. I'm sure," he continued, ignoring Raimundo's attempt to get a word in, "that you've dealt with your elements plenty of times before and are absolutely convinced that you're masters just because you can control them at your will. But using your Elemental Wu is no longer an option, and even they give you nothing more than control.

"The elements that make up the world are both a source of life and a source of death. You know how to create, but can you control how you destroy? My greatest task here is to ensure that by the time you go to face down the potential evil Hannibal intends to awaken, you are equally balanced in both the sickening righteousness _and_ the consuming darkness that exists in everything."

They stared at Chase, trying to comprehend the full meaning of his words. Shadows of tigers passed by the doorway, yellow eyes gleaming with watchful wrath.

"So … we're learning how to be evil?" Raimundo finally said, to which Chase gave an irritated sigh.

"No, but if we were, you'd have no trouble with the lessons, wouldn't you?" Raimundo balked, and Chase continued. "Evil exists regardless of your efforts to wipe it out of existence, but not everything in the shadows necessarily counts as evil. What you need to learn is how to embrace those shadows as well as the light within you."

"So you're goin' to teach us how to deal with this darkness, is that right? And you're not gonna try and make us give in to it?"

"I don't know about _that_." Chase stood up, the burnished gold of his armor glinting in the candlelight. "If you can't handle what I teach you and instead fall to the Heylin way, well … it's not a loss to _me_." He smirked briefly before heading around the monks to the door. "My cats will show you to your rooms. They'll bring you dinner later. Your training starts tomorrow; I recommend you rest well."

They watched Chase disappear around the doorframe and glanced at each other, curious, confused, and above all extremely wary.

.-.-

The rooms the tigers lead them to were, in Raimundo's words, "A huge improvement over those cubicles back at the temple!" Even Omi, who enjoyed the simplicity of his home, liked the look of them. None of them were opulently furnished, but they were well-designed, high-class, and above all had actual beds big enough for two. Each one also lead to a separate bathroom, and the monks momentarily forgot about their predicament as they each grabbed a room to check out.

A little later, after they'd stashed their bags and the concern of the situation came crawling back, they all gathered in Raimundo's room to talk.

"I can't believe it. Big beds, nice bathrooms, tea when we get here, room service … " Raimundo sat down heavily on the end of his bed. "There's gotta be a catch."

"Other than the fact that tomorrow we start training with Chase Young?" Kimiko slumped back in a chair and started to pull the pigtails out of her hair. "That's a pretty big catch if you ask me."

"Well, duh, but I just don't trust the guy. He said he wouldn't poison us, but how do we know he's telling the truth?"

"Rai, d'you _really_ think he'd poison dinner just because he hates us?"

"He's evil. He doesn't need to have any other reason."

"He gave his word." Omi leapt onto the bed next to Raimundo and gave his friend a skeptical look. "You remember when we first fought him and he let us go even when he could have destroyed us, all because he gave his word? I believe we should at least give him our doubt's benefits."

"Benefit of the doubt." Raimundo leaned back. "You sure put a lot of faith in this guy, Omi. I really hope this isn't because you're still convinced he can be good."

"You had faith in me when I turned evil."

"That's because he actually stole your soul, dude. Your good half got chucked out and we had to go get it. His? Is _gone_."

"We don't know that for sure … "

"But we can be _pretty_ sure," said Kimiko. "I mean, he's been evil for over a thousand years. Even if there was some good left in him, he's probably too used to what he does now to ever want to go back."

Omi fell silent, lost in his thoughts.

As the others chatted about the nature of defending themselves against a spontaneous attack by wildcat, he tried to recall the time not all that long ago when he'd thought to alter time for the better. To become Shoku Warrior, he tried to keep Chase Young from becoming … well, Chase Young, prince of evil, warlord of darkness. He'd succeeded, but as a result, everything had gotten worse: Master Monk Guan was the Heylin monster instead, Master Fung had been sacrificed, and evil had been winning.

In the end, of course, they'd won, and everything had returned to normal, but some days the memories of that other possibility filtered back to him. Usually in dreams, sometimes while he was awake. He could see the temple before it was broken apart. He could remember conversations he'd never actually had: asking Chase instead of Guan _why _he'd traded Dojo away to someone so evil. It bothered him because … how did you reconcile those memories, where he had been such a close friend, to ones you knew were true - the ones where you'd seen him rain fire from the sky and boil lakes into lava and pitch?

Omi wondered if his friends ever remembered that world, that other possibility. He never asked them about it. Even more so, he wondered if the Heylin remembered it. Did Guan remember a world where he betrayed all he held dear? And Chase … ?

"Omi? You still in there?"

"Huh?" He blinked and saw the others looking at him curiously. "Oh, I'm sorry. I became lost while thinking."

"Oh. Well, dinner's here." A tiger waited in the doorway, a tray in its mouth. Beyond it they could see the silhouettes of other tigers placing trays at the doors they'd claimed. "You wanna eat in here? Kim and Clay said they would."

Omi looked at his friends and then at the tiger. After a moment, he nodded.

"Yes, that sounds most pleasing! A meal as friends even in unpleasant circumstances."

"Unpleasant sure isn't the word I'd use," Raimundo muttered as the others got up and went to get their food.


	3. Chapter 3

Silently, on bare feet, Wuya slipped into Chase's lair through one of the many hidden back doors. She snuck down the hallway, turned a corner, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Chase himself standing there waiting for her.

"Chase! You almost scared me to death."

"What a pity."

She let out a breath and stood up straight, carefully patting down her hair as best she could without a mirror.

"You don't have to be so snide." With her hair apparently in perfect condition, Wuya set her hands on her hips and eyed Chase, one eyebrow quirked. "So. A little bird told me you've got monks spending the night."

"More than the night. They'll be here for weeks at the very least." The tone of his voice indicated that he was taking absolutely no joy in the fact. "Tell your bird to stay out of my affairs. Or better yet, strangle it."

"Then it's true. You _are_ keeping them around of your own free will."

"I wouldn't call it that."

"You haven't thrown them out, and you certainly haven't finished them off in their sleep. Everyone would have heard about it by now if you had." She folded her arms across her chest and fixed Chase with a curious look. "So you've decided to team up with the forces of good? Honestly, Chase, of all the people - "

With a snarl, Chase lunged forward and grabbed Wuya by the upper arm. She jerked back, but his grip was like a vise.

"I am _not_ 'teaming up' with the forces of good," he growled, "as you so neatly put it. Unlike some people, I actually have the capability to realize when carelessly raining destruction on the world isn't a good idea. Hannibal's actions and intentions are leading to things neither you nor I want to be privy to, regardless of how good or evil we are, and you _know this_. If keeping the world from complete destruction requires me to deign to teach the Xiaolin monks how to better cope with that level of evil, then so be it."

He tightened his grip. Wuya pulled at his hand, feeling the dark glove he was wearing stretch and strain as his fingers closed ever tighter around her arm.

"Additionally? My loathing of Hannibal and everything he stands for makes your hatred for Dashi look like a schoolgirl crush. At least he's been dead for a thousand years and more." Chase dragged Wuya in; she glowered at him, noting the way his irises were nearly engulfing the whites of his eyes. "If you want to join Hannibal in his attempt to destroy everything, you are welcome to do so - but keep in mind that when I find him, there will be no mercy for those who helped further his goals."

He bared his teeth, long and viciously sharp.

"Am I _clear?_"

Wuya leaned away from him, smirking slightly and hoping the terror didn't show through.

"Like crystal." She rested her hand on his. "You're certainly taking this very seriously."

Slowly, Chase loosened his grip and leaned away. He still looked like thunder, but the murder was gone from his tone.

"This subject is one I imagine anyone with half a brain would." He paused. "Though I haven't heard what Spicer's planning, so maybe I'm overestimating."

Wuya snorted. Under her fingers, she felt shredded cloth; the tips of the fingers on Chase's gloves had torn straight through. She felt the sharp points of his clawlike nails that, moments before, had been digging into her sleeve. He must have been furious to tear right through them, she realized.

"I was just concerned for your moral stance," she said soothingly. "Though I shouldn't have doubted you. You've done evil in the name of good before."

"You really shouldn't have." Chase let her go and eyed his torn glove disdainfully. "Are you planning on staying? I don't need any more distractions around than I already have, so you'd best keep yourself quiet."

"Oh, no. I couldn't stay in a place with those monks around. I'll go back to my lonely little lair while you do … whatever it is you're planning to do." Wuya examined her own nails. "If you need me, feel free to drop by."

"I won't." She rankled slightly a the casual dismissal, but only sneered and turned halfway to leave.

"You always say that, and yet I always wind up involved." Her sneer turned into a half-smirk. "Really, Chase, you don't have to be so coy."

She expected a snarl of rage and was somewhat surprised to hear, after a pause, a low snicker of laughter.

"Believe me," he said, coming closer, "if it was up to me, you wouldn't even be alive."

.-.-

Mornings in the temple had never exactly been enjoyable, but at worst, they involved Dojo running in in a panic and waking them all up in a chaotic mess. After a while, they'd gotten used to the early mornings and potential heart attacks that came with being the saviors of the world.

So it was something of a surprise for Raimundo when he slowly drifted awake, yawned, rolled over, opened his eyes blearily, and saw a tiger sitting at the side of the bed, glaring at him.

And growling.

While he managed to avoid hitting the ceiling, he did blast the sheet over the tiger's head in an effort to get as far away from it as possible. All it did was slide out from underneath and eye him with the sort of primal look it might have given a wobbly newborn antelope.

"Okay! Okay! I'm awake!" He stared at the tiger, feeling his heart pound against his ribcage. It tilted its head slightly; after a moment, it got up and paced toward the open door, nosing it open further and disappearing into the hall.

A scream a second later told him that Kimiko had just had a similar awakening. Slowly, Raimundo sank down to the bed and waited for his heart rate to go back to normal.

Within ten minutes, all four monks were out in the hall and extremely awake. Omi was rubbing his head and giving one of the nearby waiting tigers a sharp look.

"Mornin'," said Clay wearily. "Can't say 'good', but … morning', anyway."

"No kidding." Raimundo yawned hugely. "He's a really sick guy to be waking us up like this."

"He's gotta get his kicks somehow." Kimiko finished putting her hair up and brushed the pigtails back. "If he can't kill us, the next best thing is early-morning heart attacks."

"Or being devoured." Omi pressed at a spot on his head gingerly. "That was the most unpleasant awakening I have ever had. Except when Dojo was ill and decided to sleep on my pillow."

"Oh, god. _Please_ don't elaborate."

When the tigers started down the hall, they monks followed, albeit warily. But they were only lead into a large circular room containing a table laden with food. There were five chairs, but Chase was nowhere to be seen, so they sat down and started loading their plates.

"This sure is hospitable of him," said Clay from behind a stack of waffles. "I wondered if we were gonna get breakfast, or be breakfast."

"If he didn't poison dinner, he probably wouldn't have his cats kill us in the morning." Kimiko maneuvered a bowl of fruit away from Raimundo. "We can probably rule out immediate death for a while. Wouldn't be surprised if he tried to work us to death, though."

"I wonder if we could contact Jermaine and ask him how his training with Chase Young went," said Omi. "Perhaps he could give us an estimation of what we will have to do."

"If you've got his e-mail, I can send one off later."

"I … don't believe I have it."

"It'd be different, anyway." Raimundo leaned back in his seat, waving his fork - and attached slice of apple - vaguely. "He was training to be evil without even knowing it, so Chase was probably all casual and nice about it. I mean, as nice as it's possible for him to be. He really doesn't like us, so he'll probably do everything he can to make our training as miserable as possible."

"Well, if you're expecting it," came Chase's voice suddenly, making them all jump, "then how can I deny you?"

They looked around. Chase was on the balcony that ringed the hall, leaning on the railing and watching them disinterestedly. It was a surprise to them to see him wearing not his usual armor but loose - if still tailored - clothing, a dark shirt and pants accompanied by his standard gloves and sandals. It took away from the brutal warlord image while not even coming close to making him look any less threatening. Even without the spikes, Chase Young radiated a palpable aura of evil.

"It wasn't a suggestion, just an observation," said Raimundo sullenly.

"Of course." Chase fixed his gaze on each of them in turn. "When you're done, take the left hall and go straight until you reach the next chamber. I'm sure you'll recognize it. I'll be waiting, so don't linger unless you want me to come get you." He pushed away from the balcony and strode back into the shadows; a moment later, he was gone.

"Creepy," said Kimiko, shuddering. "This is going to be an awful few weeks."

"Why wasn't he wearing his armor? He's gonna train us in plainclothes?" Raimundo stared at the spot where Chase had vanished from.

"_We're_ in plainclothes, Rai," Clay pointed out. "He's probably just tryin' to make us look bad again."

"It's a little late for _that_."

They finished breakfast a little quicker than they'd planned and made their way down the proper hallway, ignoring the low growls of the lions and tigers behind them. Their eventual destination was the room where they'd fought Chase before: lined with red-tinted alcoves and giant sightless eyes, the floor innocuous but, as they knew, lined with traps and pits.

Chase himself was standing on the opposite side of the room, his hands clasped behind his back.

"The moment you set foot in the center ring," he said, "your training begins. Be aware that I will not hold back against you at any point in time except to keep you from certain death or mutilation. The upcoming weeks will be grueling, painful, and invariably soul-crushing; if any of you think, right now, that it will be too much for you, you're welcome to sit out and wait to die."

While his expression was as flat as ever, there was a sudden condescending tone to his voice at the end, as if implying that he half expected all four of the monks to turn around and leave. They all riled.

"It's up to you. Make your choice, right now: either leave … " His scowl deepened. " … or _fight._"

It was enough to propel them all into action. As one, the monks launched themselves across the room, ready to take on Chase.

But where their anger and past experiences had lead them to believe that they could defeat him in any given fight, something seemed to have changed. Maybe it was because of the time between their last battle with him, or because he was actually trying to teach them something, or some other reason entirely, but Chase was absolutely indomitable this time around. Surprise and teamwork and dedication had taken him down before multiple times. Now they weren't giving them much ground … or any at all.

When Omi came in low and Raimundo high, he snagged them both and flung them at opposite walls. When Clay came from the left and Kimiko from the right, he ducked back and plowed into them as they tried to come to a halt, hurling them across the room with a body slam. Unlike his usual grandiose and ancient fighting ways, Chase was sharp, abrupt, and unforgiving. He paid attention to every move. He didn't grandstand or try to give them a fighting chance just for an opportunity to try and crush them again. He fought fast and dirty and furiously, with the sort of intensity they'd only ever seen him turn on Hannibal before.

Raimundo yelped as Chase drove an elbow into his side, just below his ribcage, knocking him to the ground and making him wheeze. Omi tried to strike back only to be grabbed and used as a shield to deflect Clay, who flailed trying to divert his kick somewhere other than straight into Omi's stomach and wound up crashing into the nearby wall hard enough to crack it. In one final sweep, Chase threw Omi at Kimiko as she came down in a hard kick, knocking their skulls together and leaving them to land in a dazed and bruised heap.

All in all, it had taken five minutes.

"Pathetic." Chase sneered at the scattered monks and idly cracked his knuckles. "They clearly haven't been teaching you anything of worth at either of those temples. No doubt the emphasis has been on using the Shen Gong Wu."

"Yeah, well, those are sort of what we're trying to collect." Raimundo got to his feet and gingerly rubbed his side. "I think you cracked a rib!"

"I did not. You're bruised at worst." Raimundo tried to glare, but Chase had already turned his attention elsewhere. "Dashi's _toys_ may be powerful, but to depend on them too heavily is to damn yourself if you ever lose them. The same is true for any weapon and is why without his trinkets, Spicer doesn't even begin to register as a threat. The only truly dependable weapon is oneself."

"Right up until you break an arm or something," said Kimiko, wincing and helping Omi to his feet.

"Then you learn to fight without that arm. The rest of your body is still a viable weapon." Chase folded his arms across his chest. "If the sword you're using breaks and you don't know how to do battle without it, you're helpless."

He glanced around at the monks, standing in various states of injured slouch, and gave a slight snort of disdain.

"I see you're all on your feet. Very well. Come at me again."

They stared back, incredulous.

"What - _already?_ Didn't you kick our butts hard enough for one day?"

"I don't think I'll _ever_ tire of that."

"We're covered in bruises and you ain't even broken a sweat," Clay said with a grimace as he leaned on the leg that hadn't hit the wall heel-first. "Don't you think we could use a little R&R?"

"If you're going to complain like this, you may as well leave now," Chase snapped. "My cats haven't had breakfast yet and wouldn't mind a few scrawny monks as an appetizer."

So they charged him again.

It ended much the same way as the first time. They pitted everything they had against Chase and he hurled it back in their faces. Any ground they gained - attacks more desperate as time went on and tactics more thin and ragged and transparent - any attacks landed, any grunts or snarls of pain from him rather than them, was matched and doubled by his increasingly intense furor. By the time they could no longer manage to get to their feet, even Chase was panting slightly, his bangs stuck to his forehead by sweat.

"No more," Raimundo croaked. "I can't _breathe_."

Chase glared at him - at all of them - but slowly drew himself back under control, standing up straight and brushing his hair out of his face with one hand. The monks lay in various states of exhaustion on the floor. Only Omi managed to push himself into a sitting position, and even then he had to support himself against one of Clay's legs. But he was also the first to get his breath back.

"In all the time we've fought you," he started, still trying to slow his pounding heart, "you have never fought so … so … quite like that. Why now? You could have defeated us easily before, if you had … "

"Because I wanted to give you a chance." Chase, for his part, sounded only barely winded. "Our previous encounters were mostly tests, or designed to let you win, or suffered due to extenuating circumstances. What hate I have for you as a force of Evil against Good has been tempered by a variety of things. But now, I am not testing you. I'm training you." He glowered at nothing in particular. "I know your limits and I'll improve on them if it kills you all."

"Isn't it supposed to be 'if it kills _me_'?" Kimiko asked.

"Not in this case."

"But that still doesn't make sense!" Omi tried to sit up straighter, winced, and leaned back again. "Surely you could have kept me under your control as one of your warriors, rather than losing to us, if you had fought like that."

Chase sighed, a little aggrieved but with his tone still sharp and dry.

"You don't have your Weapons. You don't have your Wu. And you don't have the _immediate_ threat of Evil conquering the world slashing at your heels to spur you on." His glare moved from monk to monk. "Finally, you're fighting me. I have had fifteen hundred years to train in every possible method of combat known to man and demon, whereas the four of you have only the barest amount of training in a single style - and not one of you will ever, _ever_ be able to power yourselves with the level of loathing I have at this very moment."

"Loathing … for Hannibal?" Raimundo asked warily.

"Yes." Chase sneered. "For now."

After a moment, and with a contemptuous flick of his sleeves, Chase strode out of the room, not entirely accidentally kicking one of Raimundo's arms out of the way as he went. He vanished down the long hall before any of them could call him back, or in Raimundo's case, blast him further down it with a shockwave of air. For a while, they all lay silently, recovering and testing how much it hurt to try and stand.

"This is going to be sooo painful in the morning," Kimiko groaned as she pushed herself to her feet.

"How can it get worse?" Raimundo hadn't moved from his place on the floor except to pull his arm back in.

"Muscles," Clay said, helping Omi up and then being helped in turn. "They're still dealin' with the beat down right now. Once they've had a night to relax, we're gonna be sorer'n a bunch of rodeo clowns after breakin' in a new bull."

Omi went over to Raimundo and started trying to push him up to very little success. Raimundo waved him off with a groan and rolled over to push himself up onto first an elbow and then his knees.

"If he's gonna do this every day, we probably just should have stayed at the temple."

"He can't do this _every_ day," Omi insisted. "He cannot expect us to improve if he doesn't teach us."

"He probably thinks this is teaching. And we're supposed to learn how to avoid him." Raimundo finally stood up, wobbling in place. "Or something like that. Somebody help me back to my room. I need a bath. The hottest bath possible."

"We're in a volcano. I bet you could scald yourself," said Kimiko, but her tone was laced with the dream of soothing away sore muscles with an hour's worth of pure heat.

"Might not be so bad."

And so, leaning on each other, the four monks staggered their way down the hall.

.-.-

Deep in the bowels of another, darker lair, a Moby-Morphed-to-a-suitable-size Hannibal tried to ignore Jack Spicer's presence and found, as Chase had learned some time ago, that this was an impossible endeavor.

"It's not _my_ fault the temple was empty!" Jack whined, straightening the pointlessly high collar on his jacket yet again. "You can't blame me for something I have no control over!"

"I can blame you for not comin' back with information."

"Nuh-uh! If there was nobody there, I couldn't get any information!"

"You could have if you looked a little harder." Hannibal moved from one table to another, flipping through a pile of books before pulling out one that looked promising. Jack zoomed up to him and glowered over his shoulder.

"Oh, come on! I doubt they left a note saying something like 'Dear Evildoers, we have gone on vacation in Australia and taken all the Wu with us. See you in a few weeks! Sincerely, The Dumb Monks.' It's not like I can find them if they're not - "

Jack cut himself off with a strangled scream as Hannibal whirled around and snagged him by the collar, dragging him down to eye level.

"It's called _investigatin'_, you twit, and I must really be losin' my mind if I thought you had half a brain enough to know how to do that!" He released Jack with enough force to send the villainous wannabe crashing to the floor and scowled down at him. "You go in and you see if the Wu's still all there, or if there's anythin' missing, or if something's been left behind, and then you make an educated guess as to where they might be hidin'."

"I tried to see if the Wu was there," Jack said, rubbing his side, "but I couldn't get into the vault! They changed the opening mechanism."

That got Hannibal's attention. He blinked down at Jack, the anger giving way to surprise.

"Really? Now that's interesting. I didn't even know they could do that." He turned back to the table and eyed the high piles of books and scrolls. "That means the Wu's probably still down there. Or … somethin' else."

"You mean something like that egg you found?"

"Of course not. There's nothin' in the world like that." Hannibal cleared off the table in one sweep, grabbed a nearby scroll, and unrolled it in front of him. It was an ancient map, yellowing and faded, with dark marks outlining what had to be countries and roads. "I am the only one with that kind of power right now, and there's not a damned thing in the world anyone can do to stop me."

Suddenly he turned on Jack again, hefting him up off the floor and setting him on his feet.

"What you're gonna do now," he said, pulling Jack close, "is go back to the temple and do a thorough - and I do mean _thorough_ - search. If you find anyone, you bring 'em back here tied up nice and neat. If you don't, then you go to that vault and you find out how to open it without blowin' it up."

"What? But that could take forever!"

"Then you'd best hurry it up, boy. Am I _clear?_"

Hannibal glowered at Jack for a few moments too long before turning him around and shoving him at the door. Jack staggered, stumbled, and tripped out the door - and nearly ran right into Wuya, who shifted to the side just in time to let him crash to the ground instead of into her.

"Graceful as always, Jack."

Hannibal turned at the sound of her voice and smiled one of his most ingratiating and evil smiles.

"Why, if it isn't the lovely Miss Wu Ya," he said, pronouncing both parts of her name individually. "Now what brings you down here at a time like this? Last I heard, you were still spendin' time with Chase."

"I was," she said, idly brushing her hair back over her shoulder, "but he's a little tetchy right now, and when he gets like that he's absolutely impossible to live with."

Hannibal snickered and turned back to his map. Wuya joined him, leaning against the edge of the table to glance over it. It was nowhere she could recognize, so she figured it was just something the bean had dug up from a dusty vault somewhere.

"So, I couldn't help but overhear that you've lost some monks."

"I'm sure you couldn't." Hannibal pored over the map, his smile turning into a grimace. "The whole Xiaolin Temple's up and left. The place is abandoned and the Wu's locked up. They mighta gone over to the other temple, but I can't see why every single one of 'em would have done that."

"Fear, maybe." Wuya examined her nails. "I can't tell you where they all are, but I can tell you where at least four of them have gone."

Hannibal glanced at her.

"And just where would that be?"

"Mmm, I don't know if I should just _tell_ you." She idly buffed one nail on her sleeve and peered at the resultant shine. "Unless you're willing to give me something in return … ?"

"I'll let you have a look at the Shards."

She scowled slightly.

"Just a look?"

"Not even I'm goin' to be so stupid as to touch 'em. A look's more'n I've given most people."

"Oh, fine." Wuya huffed, but recovered in an instant. "The four Dragons are currently living with and being trained by your own previous protégé."

"They're with _Chase?_" Hannibal said incredulously, looking up from the map.

"WHAT?" came Jack's envious yelp from just outside the door.

"I thought I told you to get going, boy!" snapped Hannibal before turning his attention back to Wuya. "You're sure they're there?"

"I asked him myself. I can't say he's too pleased about it, but … "

"They're with him." Hannibal gazed at nothing for a moment before starting to laugh. "Hah! They're _trainin'_ with him! Oh, that's rich!" He guffawed loudly and pushed away from the table, making his way over to an otherwise innocuous stone wall. "I see what they're tryin' to do. Use good _and_ evil to work against me. An ambitious plan, but it'll never work."

He ran one tentacle arm down a part of the stone, which gleamed briefly before swinging inward. Wuya had to duck to get through the door after him, but once inside, she straightened up and peered around at the looming darkness.

"I mighta had some concern if they were bringin' Dashi into this mess, but lucky for us, he's been dead for a while now." Hannibal went to the center of the room and very, very carefully lifted the cover off of something.

A glowing green light filled the room. Wuya winced at the brightness, but in a moment was staring at the source of the light in complete, slack-jawed awe. Hannibal grinned horribly.

"And a dead man can't do nothin' to stop _this_," he said.

.-.-

And somewhere down below and beyond, it felt the light fill the room, and it _seethed. _


	4. Chapter 4

For a week, the training went about as miserably as they'd expected. Every morning they were woken up at the crack of dawn by Chase's cats, escorted to breakfast, and then brought to the battling hall where Chase proceeded to beat them into battered pulps for an hour or two. He never allowed them to use their elemental powers in these fights, and in the rare instances any of them got frustrated enough to try, he would turn his apparently endless fighting prowess on that one unfortunate monk alone. Then they were given an hour to bathe and redress before going back to the hall for more specific and actual training, where Chase didn't actively try to bruise every muscle in their bodies.

After that it was lunch (Chase never joined them), a short rest, and then to testing their elemental powers. These tests had started out relatively simple but had taken on a difficulty curve that seemed to have turned ninety degrees upward. A few hours of that lead to strict meditation, dinner, and finally - _finally_ - Chase's irritable dismissal for the day. Originally they had planned to take these opportunities to explore his massive lair, but after every day they were too exhausted to go much further than each other's rooms to talk.

Their exhaustion had nearly made them lose track of the days, so it was a pleasant surprise for them when Guan strode into the dining hall during breakfast, spear in hand and Dojo coiled around his neck.

"Master Monk Guan! Dojo!" Omi leapt up from his spot at the table and (almost) ran toward them, followed more slowly by the others.

"Kids!" Dojo slithered to the floor and practically hurled himself at Omi. "You're all okay!"

"That's a matter of opinion." Raimundo crouched down and let Dojo latch onto his neck in turn. "I don't think I've ever been this sore in my _life_."

"But you're not missing any limbs, right? Or woken up in a soup pot?"

"I think you're really the only one who has to worry about that, Dojo," said Kimiko with a weary laugh. "How is everything?"

"Well enough," said Guan, as Dojo moved on to hug Kimiko and then Clay. "Master Fung sends you his regards. I see you're all in one piece."

"One well-tenderized piece," Clay said with a grimace as Dojo leapt off one of his bruises. "Every day's a new adventure in findin' pulled muscles."

"The harder you train, the greater your results will be." Guan turned his head to look at the upper balcony. "Which, I have no doubt, is the intention."

They followed his gaze and saw Chase leaning over the balcony's edge, dressed as casually as ever, matching Guan's glare with a fierce one of his own. Dojo instinctively coiled closer around Omi's shoulders.

"It's the plan." There was a slight hiss to Chase's voice. "Of course, my plans do frequently seem to run into stumbling blocks. I'll assume you're not here to reclaim them."

"You know I'm here to check on their progress." That he was also there to ensure they were still alive and uncorrupted didn't need to be said.

"Yes, of course." Chase stood up straight but never stopped glaring. "Fortunately, I have other things that require my attention at the moment. Let the apprentices tell you what you need to hear first; you and I will speak later." His glare flickered into a sneer. "And don't think your training is cancelled for the day, either, _monks._" With that, he strode off into the shadows.

"Chase - " Guan watched him disappear and sighed. "He never changes."

For a moment, he watched the shadows in silence; the monks glanced at him and each other, unsure of what to say or do. Then he turned back to them with a smile and hefted his spear.

"Well then, who wants to show me what they've learned?"

"What? You want to _fight?_" Raimundo gaped at Guan. "Dude, I was hoping you were going to get us _out_ of training, not give us more!"

"It's not so much training as demonstrating. Besides, I won't be quite as vicious as I'm sure he always is."

"I will go first, Master Monk Guan!" Omi, invigorated by the arrival of one of the people he admired most, bounded toward the door that lead to the training hall. "You will be amazed at the progress I have made in so short a time!"

"If you're not too sore to show off." Clay followed Omi, who scowled at him. "What? Y'can't say you're not tryin' to show off here."

"Count me out." Raimundo slumped back in one of the chairs and waved a dismissive hand at the others. "I'm gonna take this rare opportunity to recover. Come get me when you're done, okay?"

"Oh no you don't," Kimiko said, shoving him out of the chair from behind. "If I have to train, then so do you!"

Ignoring Raimundo's protests, she pushed him down the hall after Clay and Omi, followed in turn by a faintly smiling Guan.

.-.-

"You spend an hour each morning beating them into the floor."

"And the walls. And the ceiling, if I'm in a good mood."

"What is the _point_ of that, Chase?" Guan fixed Chase with a disapproving glower from across the room, following his every movement carefully.

"To test and stretch their limits." Chase kept his back to Guan, gloved fingers moving deftly across small, unlabeled jars to deposit pinches of tea leaves in a single pot. "I'm sure you noticed their reaction times have improved, as has their creativity."

"And their aggressiveness." Guan tried to see what Chase was doing without moving from his spot. "As if they're afraid there won't be any time to strike if they hesitate for so much as a second."

"There might not be. Not from _him._" The snarl in Chase's voice made a nearby tiger lift its head from its paws, but the tone had vanished by his next sentence. "Better that they be prepared and paranoid than overconfident and dead."

"I don't disagree, but there must be better ways to impart such lessons."

"What do you suggest I do, then?" Chase glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. "Guide them patiently and reward them at the slightest success? Encourage their every tiny step in the right direction? Waste time ensuring they feel like they're actually gaining ground over the smallest insignificant details?"

"There is no harm in encouragement or patience, even for you."

"Oh, I know all about _patience_," Chase spat, picking up the larger pot and shaking it briefly. "As I'm sure you do, too."

Guan only scowled harder.

"For all their many, many failings, they are learning." Chase dumped the mixed leaves into a strainer balanced on the top of a teapot and slowly poured hot water over it. "Their endurance has improved and they are picking up tricks to protect themselves. I'm also teaching them some of my deepest martial arts secrets, which I'm sure you will never fully appreciate."

"It's an honorable sacrifice," said Guan, not rising to the bait, "and one that will be remembered well should the Dragons succeed."

"_Should_ they succeed?" The pitcher of hot water hit the tabletop with a thunk. "It sounds like you're barely more confident than I am."

"I believe they can defeat Hannibal should they face him. What he intends to raise … " Guan tried to find a kinder way to say he had no faith, but Chase already knew.

"I see." He removed the strainer and put the lid on the teapot to pour out two steaming cups. "How nice to know you aren't as blind as you used to be."

"I have never been blind."

"Very short-sighted, then." Chase turned, a small cup in each hand, and offered one to Guan. When the other man didn't move, he glowered. "It's tea, Guan. I assume you haven't stopped drinking it."

"Your assurance to not kill the apprentices doesn't extend to me."

"What point would there be to killing you? And with _tea_? If I ever kill you, it's going to be with my bare hands, old _friend._"

Guan's jaw tightened almost without him realizing it, but he kept himself calm. Chase wanted to rile and anger him, possibly to provoke him into a fight; he couldn't surrender to such obvious ploys.

"You'd do it to rid the world of a force of Good," he said, a little sardonically.

The hint of smugness dropped off Chase's face in an instant. There was a flicker of irritation, but like Guan, he kept himself under control. Or mostly so, anyway - he drank one of the cups of tea in one swallow and crushed the other one in his hand, letting the shards fall and the tea pool at his feet.

"You still think me so petty," he said dryly, then set down the cup and stripped off his tea-stained glove. "This way."

They left the small chamber and proceeded down a long hall that was somewhat ominous in structure - dark, arched, and glowing oddly in the torchlight. In silence they passed through a final arch leading to the massive center of Chase's lair. The stark contrast of blues and greens, of white architecture and growing plants, to the shadowy darkness of before made Guan squint slightly to get used to the new light. Chase only let his pupils narrow.

"For the few times I've been here, I always marvel at this place," Guan said, looking around. "It's not something I'd expected of you."

"Evil isn't relegated to obsidian architecture and fountains of blood. You can be stylish _and_ monstrous without sacrificing too much of one or the other." Guan noticed that, despite his dismissive tone, Chase was preening slightly. "Of course, it can only come in limited quantities."

"Of course." They were silent for a while before he spoke again. "When do you intend to start teaching them their elemental control?"

"Soon." Chase made his way to a balcony and put his hands on it, one gloved, the other bared to the mist rising from a nearby waterfall. "They already believe they're masters of their elements. I will enjoy pulling that belief out from under them."

"Without disastrous results." Guan joined him at the balcony but kept a safe distance of a few feet.

"If that destroys them, then they weren't worthy of being Dragons in the first place. Environmentally, who's to say they haven't already caused any number of ecological disasters?" Chase glanced over with a wry smirk. "Twisting the elements to their liking, burning down forests and upsetting rivers, causing earthquakes and typhoons … for how much you harp on balance and control, it certainly seems like they don't even consider the ramifications of their actions."

"And this concerns you?"

"Not really. If anything, they're getting a head start on my work for me. Though they might also be infringing on my territory."

"There hasn't been much time to teach them these things." Guan set his spear against the balcony and leaned on the railing. "They started late, but they learned faster than any group we've had before. In a year they've progressed as far as it took the two of us three years to go. With the re-emergence of Wuya and Hannibal, they had to get the Shen Gong Wu and protect them before anyone had a chance to teach them their standard lessons." He glanced sidelong at Chase. "You, of course, didn't help matters much."

"How dare you lump me in with a half-rate witch and a bean," said Chase without a hint of real offense. "Don't try to blame me for your loss, Guan. We fought on even ground, and it was your own mistakes that cost you."

"And when we fought on uneven ground," said Guan, "it was you who lost despite the advantage."

Chase made a dissatisfied noise and glared at the flickers of memories playing out in front of his eyes. How he remembered that loss. The good, reinvigorated with strength and power, joining the fight, mocking him, suffering only temporary disadvantages.

And repelling the beast.

With a snarl he turned to fix Guan with an icy glare. The sudden change in attitude was not lost on the Master Monk, who took hold of his spear in preparation for an attack.

"Have you gotten what you came for?" Chase asked, his voice disdainful. "Are you satisfied with their condition and progression? If so, I must ask you to _get out_. And take the dragon with you."

Guan opened his mouth to speak - then reconsidered and closed it. He gave Chase an even look for a few long seconds, turned, and headed back down the hall they'd passed through before, leaving Chase to stand among the waterfalls and gently tumbling ivy and seethe inside.

.-.-

The next day, after grudgingly dragging themselves to breakfast with the realization that this was the beginning of yet another week of grueling training, the monks arrived at the battle chamber to see Chase with three tigers.

"No way. I am _not_ fighting a tiger again," Raimundo said immediately.

"No, you're not," Chase agreed, much to everyone's surprise. "But _only_ you won't. Today, Shoku Warrior, you begin your elemental training. The rest of you will continue your standard training with them." He motioned to the cats sprawled lazily around his feet. "Tomorrow I will train a different one of you, and so on until I think you're all appropriately prepared."

Omi almost objected before remembering that yes, Raimundo had gotten the role of Shoku Warrior, and yes, that meant he was technically the most advanced among them, and therefore would be trained first. But it still stung, and he tried to hold back his glare as Raimundo went through a near-instantaneous reversal of emotions (excitement at not fighting the tigers followed by mortification at being trained one-on-one by Chase).

"Uh … I know we've fought them cats before, but how are they gonna teach us what you've been teachin' us?" Clay asked warily.

"It won't be exactly the same, but you'll pick up some new defensive techniques. There's never an inappropriate time to learn how to fight off a pack of furious tigers." Chase grinned to himself for a moment, then turned his expression back to condescending flatness and stalked out of the room, Raimundo following warily and wincing at a sudden yelp from Kimiko as one of the tigers tackled her.

"_Never_ an inappropriate time? Really? 'Cause I can think of a couple right now."

"It's not your concern at the moment, so be quiet." Chase lead him through winding halls and up staircases that twisted and bent back in on themselves. By the time they finally reached their destination - a small, chilly alcove with a ceiling that came to a conical point - Raimundo was panting. When Chase sat down, he did too, just across from the other man and not quite willing to show how grateful he was at the momentary reprieve.

The room was lit by one small brazier hanging from the ceiling by a chain. It came down about four feet, stopping only a foot above Chase's head when he was standing. The result was an eerie, shadowy light that kept making Raimundo glance at flickers in case something was hiding in the solid rock walls. For all he knew, there _was_ something there. He wouldn't put it past any of the evildoers they'd battled.

"The wind," Chase said suddenly, drawing Raimundo's wavering attention back to him, "is a powerful element that encompasses far more than just the driving force of the air. It _is_ the air, and the weather, and the motes that make up every spark of life in the world. It is necessary for life and often takes it away. It is violently destructive, unstable, transient, and uncontrollable. In turn, Dragons of the Wind are often arrogant, flighty, greedy, and have aspirations far out of their reach."

Raimundo rankled at the succinct dismissal of any even remotely good traits he might have had.

"Oh yeah? And how would _you_ know?" he snapped, feeling a little childish for it but still stung.

"Centuries of experience fighting Dragons-in-training," Chase said. "And because _I_ was once destined to become a Dragon of the Wind."

All of Raimundo's witty retorts failed him. He just stared.

"Don't be so surprised. I'm sure you can see numerous parallels between us."

"Uh … _numerous?_" He doused a sudden wave of suspicious and unsure feelings in sarcastic irritation. "I don't think so. There's like … one, dude. We both made the mistake of joining the forces of Evil, and in my case? It was temporary."

"But you did join," Chase pointed out. "And for far more sympathetic reasons than I did. You disobeyed your master in an attempt to save him and were punished for it. You were belittled and mocked by your peers for your inferior status. The only mistake you made that I can see was your choice in joining Wuya rather than someone of a higher evil echelon."

"Like you." Raimundo sounded unimpressed.

"Like me." There was a flicker of a smile on Chase's face. "I who traded my soul for youth and power. You would have been hard-pressed to find a way out of _my_ control, but Wuya is extremely bad at handling subordinates."

"Tell me something I don't know." Raimundo almost rolled his eyes at the thought of just how dysfunctional the relationship between Wuya and Jack was regardless of how much time passed. "That's still only one similarity."

"You want power. You want control. You want to be lauded and admired by those around you. Most importantly, you want to be a hero."

"_You_ wanted to be a hero?"

"Of course I did. Why else would I have joined the temple in the first place?"

"I don't think about it much. It's not exactly something that's on my mind … you know, ever."

"Naturally." Chase eyed Raimundo with a slight sneer. "To go back to where I was, Dragons of the Wind often fall from their path thanks to their own impatience and fluctuating nature. They're no more likely than any other Dragon to turn to the Heylin, but by their nature they're often morally ambiguous and have questionable lives and histories. It makes others suspicious almost immediately."

He reached between them and started scrawling wavy lines in the dust on the stone floor with one black-gloved nail.

"But, as I know you've experienced, that can also be used for the _good_ of the world. A warrior of absolutely pure virtue is practically useless in this day and age."

Raimundo almost smirked. The time he'd tricked the bean into a complete and total loss just by pretending to have turned his back on his friends again was a victory he was never going to let go, even knowing that he'd paid for it. Earning Hannibal's ire hadn't gone well for him, but the guy couldn't get to him again. Not through his fear, anyway, and that was everyone's biggest weakness, right?

"This is why you're the closest to ascending to the role of a Dragon, and why these lessons may go more smoothly for you than the others, so long as you continue to be aware of that darkness that sets you apart."

"Without letting certain people talk me into letting it take over?"

"If you think you can handle it, oh mighty Shoku Warrior." Chase smiled, or at least looked like he was smiling. There were far too many sharp, glinting white teeth visible for Raimundo's liking.

"I can handle anything you throw at me." Raimundo smirked back and tried to keep his cool.

"You haven't been able to up until now. One week's worth of training won't save you if I decide to tear out your throat. You're especially vulnerable right here, where space is limited and you can't simply fly away to escape danger. Your personal weaknesses notwithstanding, a Wind Dragon's abilities are dependent on how much room there is and how much air is available. Too little of either and you're trapped."

"I get the space thing, but if there's not enough air, can't I just make some? Clap my hands and - "

"No. Wind and Earth can't be created out of 'nothing', if you have to call it that. There is water in the air, and fire only needs the right spark, but earth is earth and wind either exists and can be moved or simply isn't there."

"That sucks." The idea that Omi and Kimiko would always have a free pass with their elements made Raimundo - not _jealous_, of course not, he wouldn't be jealous of _them_, but just a little irritated.

"Everything natural has limits." Chase lifted his hand from the spirals he'd been drawing and eyed the results. "And most things unnatural, as well."

Raimundo glanced down at the scrawling in the dust. There were long spirals swirling in among each other as the wind, and curved lines bisected by other curved lines carved out clouds and mountains.

"Okay, I get it. I'm limited. What's your point?"

"To make you aware of it. Testing those limits and your weaknesses will come later." Chase fixed him with a level glare. His gold irises gleamed oddly in the flickering torchlight, and his pupils, dark and snakelike, were nearly depthless in the shadows. "Today, I judge whether or not you can control all the facets of your powers, even if you can barely do so."

"What exactly is there that you think I don't know how to do?" Raimundo raised a suspicious eyebrow.

"Control yourself."

"Seriously?" He almost laughed, but Chase wasn't smiling. "_You_ think I need self-control?" He grinned and followed suit as Chase stood up. "So, hey, I've got this kettle back home, maybe you'd like to call it - "

Without warning, Chase slammed a fist into the wall opposite of the way they'd come in. Raimundo jumped, expecting to be attacked for being hilariously witty, but to his surprise the wall only shuddered and a part of it dropped out and down to reveal a panoramic view of the bleak, colorless landscape that surrounded the lair. He peered out; below them, the glowing fires of the lair's monstrous face sent up waves of heat.

They were inside one of the spikes at the very top of the cave, just beneath the smoking lava pit.

"I want you to create a storm," Chase said after a theatrical pause to let Raimundo take in the unusual but impressive scenery.

"That's it? No problem, yo." Raimundo cracked his knuckles. "One dreary, dusty thunderstorm, coming right - "

"And then I want you to bring it to a halt, the way it would die down in nature."

"Uh … okay. Any particular reason why?"

"I told you. Control." Chase stepped behind him, coming almost uncomfortably close. "I've seen you tear up forests and bring down ruins with blasts of wind. I have no doubt that you can destroy things with your powers, and you can fight with them in a certain low-brow way. But I don't believe that you can stop yourself and your destruction once you've gotten started."

"I really think you should talk to the kettle - "

"Shut up." Raimundo snickered anyway, until he felt a hand squeezing the bones of his shoulder painfully hard. "Create the storm, then bring it down - and don't attack me."

"If you come at me, I'm fighting back, dude."

"No you aren't." This was punctuated with a particularly hard squeeze, and Raimundo scrabbled at the hand on his shoulder. "You're fast, aren't you? Learn how to multitask, or I'll throw you into the volcano, _sacripanta._"

"Wh - ?"

He didn't have time to form his question. Chase shoved Raimundo off the ledge they were standing on, forcing him to refocus his priorities into not ending up a Xiaolin pancake on the rocky outcropping below. He blasted himself into a curve, avoiding immediate death, and shot up into the clouds just above the mountain lair.

"Did he seriously just call me that?" he wondered out loud before focusing on the air around him.

There were always storms getting ready to break over the mountains; it wasn't hard to reach out and feel the currents pushing against each other, one going high and the other going low. All he had to do was speed things up a little to make the clouds grow and darken (more than they already were, anyway) and rumble with thunder and lightning. The electricity danced past him in blue-white streaks, and for a minute he wondered how much trouble he'd get into for trying to fry Chase before the fight really started. Probably enough to get him thrown into the volcano, even if he missed.

So he concentrated, and focused, and was nearly knocked clean out of the air when a boulder came flying at him, missing him by a matter of inches.

"Oh, crap - "

There was Chase, hovering not too far below him, picking pieces off the mountains around his lair and hurling them directly at Raimundo. He threw another dangerously spiked one and, as Raimundo dodged, came straight at him, fists outstretched. One clipped him on the still-sore shoulder, making him spin and tumble before catching himself. As he tried to pull the wind back under control, the spiked boulder knocked his feet out from under him, Chase having caught it before it fell and hurled it back the way it came. Upside-down, he could only watch as that streak of black and gold and malice came at him again, bashing him up above the cloudline where the winds were already strong enough to start tossing him around.

"I thought you were better than this, Shoku Warrior!" Chase called, barely audible above the roaring of the wind.

"I am!" he snapped back, balancing on the air flows. "But not when I'm taking boulders to the face and can't fight back!"

"Pathetic!" With that, Chase dropped out of sight.

Raimundo turned to see if he was going to get attacked from behind but saw nothing. Warily, and quickly, he rewound the winds so the storm kept building until he was in the center of an impossibly dark thunderhead. It probably wouldn't rain - he couldn't cause that - but it was a storm nonetheless, winds twisting and turning and churning, building up into the sort of mess that normally spawned tornadoes on land and hurricanes over the ocean. The whole while he kept an eye out for any interruptions, constantly on the move and trying to sense any disruptions in the flows surrounding him.

It paid off. A disturbance made him dodge left; a boulder went past. He zig-zagged to avoid any sudden attacks by dragon monster and managed to avoid another sudden boulder instead. Then they were coming at him out of nowhere, every current warning him of an intrusion: a barrage of rocky missiles sent by someone who wouldn't be displeased in the least to see him crushed to death in midair.

As he flung himself around trying to quiet down the storm and getting bruised by not-quite-misses, Raimundo saw one of the boulders get caught in a particularly strong air stream. It rolled along for a few seconds before gravity took hold and dragged it back through the clouds. He leaped out of the way of another projectile, a plan already starting to form in his head. He could do that, couldn't he? The wind could knock people off their feet and uproot trees; why not push a couple of rocks around?

There was only one way to find out. If he screwed up, well … he was right above Chase's lair. The guy couldn't expect anything less than a little collateral damage.

Raimundo felt a fresh barrage of boulders coming at him and stayed put. He brought up both hands and concentrated. Here was the storm, a mass of wind and air, and here were the stones, pure weight and danger. They couldn't be stopped - not all of them at once - but they could be … redirected, couldn't they? All he had to do was carve a new path in the air and let the wind carry them along the invisible tracks. As the wind died, they'd have to fall, and he could bring them down with him …

The storm boomed and crackled in the air, rainless and howling. Raimundo twisted the rocks into the swirling winds above and around him, trying to keep them on as few paths as possible so he didn't have to spread himself too thin. At the same time - made all the more difficult by new boulders starting to come at him - he started bringing the storm down, realigning streams and currents to match up rather than clash. Even with what little practice he had in quieting this kind of wind, it wouldn't have been too difficult if the boulder balancing act hadn't been there.

Slowly, the clouds lightened. They were always dark given the location, but they were no longer pitch black and littered with lightning. As the winds quieted, the boulders started to drop off, rolling down unseen pathways to crash back into the mountains below. Raimundo kept them from all falling at once, feeling his entire body strain with the effort. Most of them made their way back to the rocky cliffs. A few fell into the open volcano. At the very end, one smashed into the flat entryway to the lair, accompanied by Raimundo, who did pretty much the same thing but with less shattering. He collapsed, panting, twitching, and sweating, his ears ringing with the lack of noise after being at the center of the storm.

Chase landed nearby, glancing between the fallen monk and the boulder. Raimundo heard him shove the boulder off the edge and mutter something, probably at the damage left behind. _Too bad_, Raimundo thought, _that's your own fault and you know it._ Not that he expected Chase to accept that, but there was no way he was going to take the blame after what he'd just been through.

"Adequate," he heard, the tone grudgingly approving. "I was wondering if you'd figure out a way to keep those boulders up. You could have used them to deflect others, but your method wasn't unacceptable."

"Whatever," Raimundo wheezed.

"Consider it a start." He felt a foot nudge him in the ribs. "Your accuracy needs work, as do a lot of other things. As a fully-fledged Dragon, you'll have to be able to do a lot more than stand at the center of a storm."

"Like _what_?"

"Stand at the center of a hurricane."

Raimundo groaned and rolled over at another nudge, glaring up at Chase.

"In the eye? That'd be easy." He sat up and grimaced. "I didn't know you spoke Portuguese."

"I speak a lot of languages. It comes with traveling the world for a millennium and a half."

"Okay, but … _sacripanta_? My grandpa used to call people that."

"Is it that old-fashioned?" Chase raised an eyebrow. "I suppose insults do change with time. I should drop by Brazil sometime."

"Stay out of Rio."

Chase snorted. Raimundo stood up and rubbed his sore shoulder, realizing that in six hours, his everything would be even more bruised than after that first day of training. No matter how strong he was, Chase didn't pack quite as much punch as an airborne boulder.

"I'll just call you a brash fool, then. Let's work on your speed."

"Uh." He gaped. "You're joking, right? More training? After _that_? No way!"

"Would you rather we worked on your agility?" Chase asked with a tinge of irritation. "We're surrounded by mountains. I can find as many boulders as I need."

"I can barely stand!"

"You'll be flying."

"Can't I take a break?"

"No." Chase clasped his hands behind his back and loomed over Raimundo (though, to Raimundo's secret delight, not by much). "Now quit whining before I get fed up and test your ability to cool lava flows while six inches from a volcano's surface."

"All right, all right. Yeesh." He limped toward the edge of the outcropping, Chase close behind him, and heaved a heavy sigh. "Y'know, I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised that you used _sacripanta_. I mean, it's an old geezer term, and you're pretty much an old geezer yourself - "

Raimundo jumped off the edge before Chase could grab and throw him, rocketing off into the mountain range with a snarling, furious dragon warrior on his heels.


	5. Chapter 5

Raimundo hadn't been shy about telling the others how absolutely godawful his training session with Chase had gone. He'd gone into great detail about how many bones he swore had been broken and tendons ripped to shreds by this or that particular training, which had taken a better part of the day, once he'd come out of his exhausted stupor. There was a growing bruise on one of his shoulders and a scattering of others all over his torso. He winced when he put too much weight on one leg. Kimiko said he was being overdramatic, but Clay heard the heartfelt thanks in his voice when Omi carefully applied a neatly-formed ice cast over more tender injuries. It made him angry - for Raimundo's condition, for what might happen to Omi and Kimiko, for Chase's cavalier attitude about the whole affair - and it made him nervous.

And it made him extremely wary when the next morning, after helping Raimundo to and from breakfast, Chase gestured for him to follow as the tigers stalked toward their well-tenderized victims.

He stayed silent as he followed Chase, watching and waiting for any sign of attack. Chase, for his part, said nothing as well. They proceeded through the long halls to the lair's main entrance and stepped out onto the outcropping; Clay clamped his hat firmly to his head so the wind wouldn't snatch it away. He wanted to ask where they were going - some special training area elsewhere in the mountains? - but before he could pose the question, Chase had him by the arm and suddenly his feet had left the ground.

They were flying out and over the empty wasteland, Clay supported only by one clawed grip on his bicep. He frantically grabbed at Chase's wrist in case the man decided retaining what little honor he had left wasn't quite worth the joy he'd get out of finally disposing of a nuisance. It wasn't a pleasant trip given the speed they were traveling at; by the time they landed, Clay's entire arm ached from having to support him the whole way.

He tried to rub the soreness out of it as Chase walked to the edge of the cliff they were standing on and peered out over the valley below. There was a flicker of a sneer on his face, as if he wasn't satisfied with the location but given the other options it would _have_ to do, before he turned back and stood face to face with Clay.

- at which point Clay noticed he was at eye level with the other man. He was 5'6", and if his father was right he still had a good six inches or so to go before he stopped growing. People had been shorter 1,500 years ago, sure - but Guan was well over six feet. Was it just Chase's bad luck? Bad genetics? Or did being evil stunt your growth? In Jack's case, it would have to have been mentally …

"Are you done being airsick?" Chase asked testily, as if he'd been reading the words off the back of Clay's eyes. Clay cleared his throat and settled his hat.

"Never was."

"Of course not." There was that momentary sneer again; this time, it faded into the constant disdain Chase had. "Sit down, monk, and we'll begin."

Clay did so, but slowly, ready to move again in an instant if he felt he had to. Chase settled across from him a few feet away. The wind wasn't so loud here, but the sound of it howling around the mountaintops didn't make things much easier to bear. Gray skies, gray rocks, a drop that was likely both extremely long and populated by the sharpest rocks imaginable less than ten feet from where they were … at least in Texas, the wastelands had the decency to be warm.

"Dragon of Earth." There was an acidic tone to Chase's voice. "Technically, you have control over the entire planet. Where water composes most of the world's surface, it is only there because of the stone supporting it. Without the crust and the magma beneath us, there would be no life: no place for the rain to fall, the wind to scour, the fire to burn and scorch. It is strong to the point of being nearly indestructible. It's also slow and devastatingly destructive; time is both its worst enemy and its most potent master." Chase rolled his shoulders and placed one hand on the ground between them. "Monks who become Earth Dragons are typically slow of body and mind and blind to both their own power and that of others."

Clay's hands tightened into fists against his legs. He wanted so badly to lash out at that cruel, disdainful face, but he didn't - he _couldn't_. Chase was deliberately trying to make him angry. The reason didn't really matter - it was probably just because he wanted to - but he assumed that somewhere in it was some kind of test, to see if Clay was going to give in to the urge to attack and prove he was a dumb, angry meat shield. He remembered this kind of thing happening when he was younger, and it only stopped when he refused to react.

" … on the other hand," Chase said, after a significant pause, "they have the patience and thoughtfulness that their fellow Dragons tend to lack, and what they don't have in regards to intelligence they make up for in tactics and sheer destructive power. I'm sure you've seen what an earthquake can do."

"Not in person." Clay unclenched his fists, but the tension was still in his arms.

"No? You've caused your own fair share of them, shallow though they were." One clawed fingernail dug into the rock between them, scratching out a line. "But you know how they work."

He only nodded. He didn't like the idea that Chase was testing his intelligence.

"Ancient tales, handed down before science told us the world was cracked and broken, said that they were caused by the animals underneath the world thrashing or fighting or trying to take a rest from their eternal burdens. Now we know that the cause is the earth devouring and creating itself, moving too slowly to see or feel, occasionally getting caught and, as a result, breaking free with more power than the hand of man could ever hope to create, though to their credit, they certainly have tried."

"Your point?"

One of Chase's eyebrows twitched.

"My _point_ is that you are the successor to the sort of destructive abilities that could destroy the world in minutes, and that you know very well what that level of power can do in the hands of an idiot."

"You keep insultin' my intelligence, partner," Clay said between clenched teeth, "and you're gonna find out right quick how wrong you are."

"How? You'll attack me?" When Clay didn't respond, Chase sneered again. "No, you won't, because even you realize that would be shooting yourself in the foot. The earth is slow to anger but immeasurable in its rage once it actually reaches that point. More than one potential Dragon of the Earth has gone insane from guilt or grief after mindlessly destroying everything they love in a fit of unstoppable fury."

The words were said with no more venom than usual, but they shook Clay to his bones. He tried not to let it show. He _was_ slow to anger, but when he got there …

"And some fall to the call of the dark earth far below, and join the Heylin," Chase continued, apparently without noticing Clay's momentary weakness. "No more than any other Dragon, but there have been times."

"Not bad enough to plunge the world into a thousand years of darkness, though."

"Unfortunately." Chase paused for a moment. "You trained with Guan not all that long ago. I'm sure you noticed his infinite patience."

"Well, yeah," said Clay, momentarily baffled by the sudden change in topic. "But what's he got to do with this?" Chase raised an eyebrow, and then it clicked. "_He's_ an Earth Dragon?"

"No, but he was meant to be. He never made it past the rank of Master Monk."

"There can be more than one to-be Dragon at a time?"

"Again, no," and now Chase's voice was testy. "Guan is not a Dragon, and he will never _be_ a Dragon. He left the path of the Elemental Xiaolin around the same time I did for reasons you'll have to ask him about."

Chase was angry. It was visible to someone with a careful eye, and Clay certainly had that - he could see Chase's grimace and the glint of sharp teeth in it, the narrowness of his pupils, the way one of his hands had clenched into a fist and the other had gouged a deep trail in the stone between them. It seemed like any mention of Guan made the dragon warlord approach fury. He kept the thought to himself and moved the conversation in another direction.

"So patience is gonna be key to me usin' my powers?"

"One key. Patience and forethought will gain you ground, but speed has its advantages, and no amount of careful planning can spare you from something that moves too fast for you to see." If Chase had been a bird, his ruffled feathers would have been smoothing. "Balancing your plans with adaptability to the unexpected is what you especially need to master."

"I already know that."

It slipped out before he could stop it, but Clay didn't try to take the words back. He did already know it, and almost everything Chase had already told him. If this was supposed to be a lesson, he could have gotten it from almost anybody: the monks at the temple, Master Monk Guan, even from Omi, who espoused those kinds of things on a regular basis. Still, he almost expected to be attacked for it. Chase didn't move, but his pupils thinned again, an animalistic tic of rage that no amount of self-control could completely conquer.

But the only response was for Chase to dig four of his nails into the rock and drag them across the ground between him and Clay, leaving behind gouges that should have shattered his fingernails as well as his fingers. He pulled back an unscathed, if dusty, gloved hand and glared at Clay.

"I've seen what you do in battle, and I am not impressed. Consider that wanton destruction is something any fool with an underdeveloped sense of morality can achieve, and then consider what you do whenever you dig your heel into the ground to launch an enemy out of reach. The earth does not heal from an earthquake. It smoothes over and fills the surface cracks, but it is forever changed - forever dragged or pushed or broken. _You_ are the cause of destruction to the earth that you control. What landslides and earthquakes you cause outside of showdowns leave a permanent mark on the world."

"I know that, too," Clay retorted, but Chase suddenly smirked in return.

"And that hasn't stopped you from doing it?" he asked. "How many people have you displaced with your carelessness? How many homes destroyed, creatures' habitats crushed and smothered because of you?"

"I've never - "

"Don't use _never_ if you aren't completely sure of what comes next, monk."

Clay almost kept talking, but his mind raced back over his past fights. Not all of them had been in showdowns, which didn't alter or harm the world in any way. Some of them, he grudgingly remembered, had been out in the open - usually against Jack and his endless waves of robots. But there was no way he'd ever done the kind of damage Chase was insinuating he'd done. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he didn't think he had that kind of power.

And Chase was mocking him: for what he'd done and what he _couldn't_ do. Clay could see it in that disdainful smirk. He was waiting, just _waiting_ for Clay to react somehow, so he could keep mocking and condescending to him.

"Then," Clay said slowly, keeping his growing anger carefully in check, "what exactly d'you propose I should do about this?"

The smirk faded slightly, and Chase leaned back.

"I told you the first day you were here," he said. "Learn to control it."

Chase stood, gesturing for Clay to follow. The two of them made their way to the edge of the cliff which, just as Clay had thought, was a sheer drop to a pit of jags and spikes. Past the danger the rocks smoothed out into smaller drops and rocky pathways before smoothing out entirely into the desolate, sandy wasteland that surrounded them.

"Use this - " Chase gestured to the stones below them " - for what I tell you to do. Without unduly twisting the mountainside, splitting it, or detaching any rocks from their base to suit your needs, I want you to catch me."

Clay immediately shifted one leg back to try and consume Chase in the earth, but there was a clawed grip on the back of his neck before he could pull the ground upward.

"Nice try." The words were growled in a tone that was only faintly murderous. "But I'm not done yet. I will start at the far edge of this artful plateau and make for you. Catch and stop me before I manage it and I will consider you successful."

"_Artful?_" Clay twisted in the grasp, which didn't relent.

"In a suitably diabolical way, yes," said Chase. "Do you understand?"

"What happens if I don't stop you?"

"You'll find out." Five tiny pinpricks on his neck suddenly stung; then the pressure was released and Chase lunged out over the rocks, leaping and gliding from one to the next with ease. Clay rubbed the stinging spots but didn't see any blood when he pulled his hand away.

So. Catch him. That was all? Not a problem. Clay had caught spooked horses and furious bulls, and even though Chase was a combination of the worst aspects and full strength of both, it was something Clay rarely doubted his skill in. He'd just have to replace the usual rope lasso with a stone one.

Far on the other side of the jagged rocks, Chase had already landed, a small shape in the distance standing perfectly still. Clay took a deep breath and let it out, did it again, placed his feet firmly on the dry and dusty stone, and reached. It was harder to do on pure rock than soil, but not impossible.

Feel the echoes of the wind on the mountain, wearing it away one whisper-thin layer at a time …

Feel the tumble of stones and breeze-brushes of sand building up or trickling away …

Feel the light footsteps, leaping from stone to stone, a moment's infinitesimal weight on their shattered points.

Clay opened his eyes and thrust forward with his palms.

Though he didn't like it, he acted in accordance with Chase's restrictions. The earth that roared to life among the spikes below didn't split or break off. The spikes themselves warped and shot out, still attached to the ground below but now suddenly ten, twenty, fifty feet higher than they had been before. They came after the darting black shape but never managed to get in front of it. When they came close on either side, Chase only used them to propel himself in another direction.

Clay grunted and grit his teeth, feet sweeping along the dust as he tried to move the ground faster than Chase could move. It wasn't possible, he realized, but a certain stubborn anger made him keep trying even after he figured that out. Chase was coming ever closer. No matter how many times Clay nearly headed the man off, he just ricocheted in another direction, zig-zagging away from the jutting stones.

This wasn't going to work. Think. _Think!_

Angrily, he brought both arms down and then up again, pressed hard together. All the risen stones from before sunk back to their original positions at the first movement; a massive wave shot up at the second, a hundred feet in both directions, blocking Chase's progress. Clay watched with some satisfaction as Chase hit the barrier - and then started frantically trying to smash the wave down on top of him when it became clear that he was barely hindered, already dragging his way up the monstrous stones and hurling himself toward the cliff's edge more ferociously than before.

A cage, he had to cage him in - ! Clay brought up another sudden bunch of spikes, but Chase had already seen it coming and lunged up and over them, falling toward Clay with his arms outstretched.

There was a moment of pure panic. All Clay saw was his imminent death. Chase had removed his gloves and now both hands, their nails black claws in razor points, were coming for his throat. His expression wasn't human. It had the kind of smile on it you only expected to find coming at you underwater while you frantically tried to staunch the bleeding …

A sudden searing pain erupted in his shoulder as Chase blazed past him. Clay yelped and clutched at it, this time definitely feeling blood well up between his fingers. The rest of him stayed unscathed.

He turned and glared at Chase, who had come to a halt behind him, sending up a shower of broken stone and dust. One hand was streaked with blood, which he was flicking off disinterestedly.

"Poor," he said, "though I commend the extent of that wall."

"Should I be thankin' you?" Clay growled. He looked at the wounds and saw four bloody lines, shallow but still bleeding and stinging in the dusty air.

"If you'd like to." Chase examined the blood spatters left on his hand with a slight sniff of distaste. "You're dead-set on catching up to me. You should know that isn't possible. Not everything can be chased into a pen."

Clay decided not to dignify that with an answer, and set about blotting the blood off his shoulder instead.

"Again. Brute force only works in certain circumstances. If you don't want me to keep insulting your intelligence, you'll put what you apparently have to use."

And then he was gone, soaring across the stones back to his starting point.

It took Clay a few long moments to pull himself together and try to channel his anger into the earth a second time.

.-.-

The half-moon of midnight illuminated the deserted Xiaolin temple courtyard. Dead leaves littered the overgrown grass and the stone pathways. Lamps went unlit; dust went undusted. The only movements were from insects, a few late-flying birds coming home to roost, and the temple cats, who had been left to ensure that the rodent population didn't explode in the monks' absence. There was no light save that of the moon, waxing and waning as clouds drifted by …

… and that of a few floodlights inside the temple vault, where Jack Spicer was gloomily sitting on the floor, watching his Jackbots try out combination after combination of notes to try and unlock the stair mechanism.

"This _sucks_," he grumbled. There were more chimes than he could count hanging in clusters near the walls. Even with his robots working for a straight eight hours at night, it would take ages before they even got halfway through the number of possible combinations. He'd worked it out. The resulting numbers had stared him in the face like an angry redheaded witch and been just about as flexible.

With a weary, overworked sigh, he stood up and stretched. Hannibal was such a slave driver sometimes. But at least this meant Jack could make off with a whole bunch of the Wu and claim it hadn't been there in the first place - the stupid bean'd never know.

"I'm going for a walk," he told the Jackbots imperiously. "You keep working and only come get me if something really important happens. We'll clear out at five." Without waiting for an answer, he turned and strode out of the vault into the pale, eerie moonlight.

It had been a long night. They'd all been long nights, recently. He didn't dare go after the vault by day, with the sun shining and the birds singing and undoubtedly one or two old monks coming back to make sure nobody was defiling their ancient scrolls or whatever. Only once the sun had gone down did he feel comfortable sneaking over the temple walls and putting his robots to work. So what if the front gate was wide open? What self-respecting evil villain just walked in the front door when they could get in a better, sneakier way, leaving no trace of their invasion behind?

He pulled out a half-finished candy bar and chewed on it thoughtfully, discarding the wrapper in a nearby bush.

So far, nobody had caught on to him. There were no enraged losers breaking down his garage door, demanding to know why he was on the temple grounds at night. And while most of him knew that this was because they were currently staying somewhere else and wouldn't have known about his intrusions anyway, a small, loud part of him insisted that it was because they'd finally learned that he wasn't going to be messed with. Not with the upgrades on _these_ Jackbots.

Yeah. That was totally it. Not because they were off training with the man he still admired above all other no-good-doers despite repeated abuse, harassment, and double-crossings. Right.

Jack stared at the still shadows of the temple and considered.

"It's not _fair!_" he shouted to the world in general. His voice echoed across the empty courtyard and drew nobody's attention. "Why is it that he takes _them_ on instead of me? I'm a real evil genius! I'm worth training! But no, he picks _them!_" Jack kicked a nearby rock with the toe of his steel-tipped boot. "Those stupid monks and their stupid powers and their - "

He was cut off by a sharp yowl. His ill-timed kick had sent the rock flying at a cat, who leapt out of the shadows and fixed him with a disdainful look. It was a flat-faced, cream-colored thing, with eyes almost orange even in the moonlight and a patch of ruffled fur where the rock had hit it. After a moment of appraising the damage, it started to growl.

Jack only folded his arms across his chest and sneered.

"Quit complaining. You're lucky I didn't even know you were there." Not that he would have deliberately aimed at it _had_ he known, but even to a cat Jack Spicer wasn't about to back down.

In response, the growl got higher in pitch. Suddenly there was an air of pure malice about the cat, evident in every slowly-rising ridge of fur and the bared yellowy teeth. Jack felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of his neck.

"What, seriously? It was just a rock!" He sighed hugely and held up his hands. "All right, fine, come at me, bro. But be warned, I've got some serious padding going on under this coat!"

"That's good," said a tranquil voice behind him. "It would be a shame if you got hurt."

Jack screamed and nearly fell face first onto the cat.

.-.-

Watching Raimundo get thrown around by a tiger during the training session, barely managing to stay on his feet when it was stalking him and only managing a few ineffective ducks and dodges when he saw teeth going for his skull, did not sit well with Kimiko. She was having enough trouble with the tiger that was intent on making her into a late breakfast; trying to keep an eye on Raimundo was nearly impossible. She wasn't worried about Omi. He was having his own troubles, but he was also small, fast, and could jump out of their reach just long enough to catch his breath.

Another thing that didn't sit well with her was seeing Raimundo carefully pull off half his shirt to let Omi apply another ice cast over his shoulder and then catching sight of the bruise there, massive and multicolored. It went from the edge of his collarbone nearly to his elbow. He joked about it, of course, but he sighed in real relief when the cast finished forming. She helped him back to his room and piled him a plate of lunch to wordlessly apologize for accusing him of faking earlier.

And it _absolutely_ didn't sit well with her when, at the end of the day, Chase appeared at the door of Raimundo's room and practically tossed Clay inside. The latter managed to catch himself before falling flat, but it was a weak move, and his arms were trembling as he held himself up off the ground. They rushed to his side and helped him sit up. Kimiko turned to snap at Chase for being so careless, but he was already gone, and she could hear his footsteps starting to fade down the hallway outside.

It was the last straw. Almost harshly, she pulled herself out from supporting Clay's arm and stormed out the door after Chase's receding form.

"Hey!"

He paused and glanced back over one shoulder as she approached.

"Just _what_ is your problem?" she snapped, stopping some ways down the hall from him. "I know you hate us, and believe me, the feeling's mutual, but that doesn't give you any right to hurt us like that! Rai's barely walking and I'm sure I'll find out sooner or later just how much trouble Clay's going to have with that. He was _bleeding!_"

"Training isn't all fun, games, and mild injuries," Chase said flatly. "I would have thought your fights with the bean had shown you that much."

"This isn't a fight! You're supposed to be helping us!"

"I am helping you. You'll never learn anything if you don't suffer at least a little for it."

"No pain, no gain?" Kimiko retorted. "Typical of a boy to say that."

"It's an effective strategy."

"Maybe for you." She folded her arms across her chest and glared. "If you think you can keep getting away with that, especially on them, you can think again. I'm not going to let you hurt us that badly just because you promised not to kill us."

Chase didn't move. For a moment, Kimiko wondered if he was going to laugh at her, or maybe attack her, but she stood her ground. Finally, he sneered, but it was slight and cold, and when he spoke his voice was dangerously soft.

"Who are you to dictate the terms of your training to me?"

"It's - "

He wasn't listening. Chase strode off down the hall before she could finish her sentence, and no matter how much she fumed, Kimiko wasn't fully willing to chase him down and demand he listen. For one, she wasn't sure he'd keep true to his promise about avoiding great harm, and two, she wanted to get back and make sure Clay wasn't seriously hurt.

The anger blazed in her heart as she turned and stormed back to Raimundo's room. It blazed as she helped patch up Clay, and all through the night, even in her sleep. It blazed from one hour to the next as she got ready for the morning training and ate a light breakfast.

It flickered, however, when Chase came down the hall at them as they made their way to the training room and grabbed her by one pigtail, dragging her along after him toward her elemental training.

"Ow - hey! Let go!" she yelped, stumbling after him and digging at his fingers. "I can walk, you know!"

He didn't respond, but he did let her go. Kimiko rubbed her head where the hair had pulled hardest and glared at Chase's back. He was still moving, so she followed him, and eventually, after passing through long dark hall after long dark hall, they arrived in a small room almost identical to the one they'd visited the very first day they arrived. It was dim and red-walled, and in the center was a table with a small iron firepit underneath, lined with glass to keep the carpet around it from catching on fire.

On the table, over the iron burner, was a teapot. Chase sat down on one side of the table and gestured her to the opposite. Kimiko knelt slowly, and watched Chase suspiciously.

"Fire is civilization," he said as soon as they were both settled, "and fire is destruction. It is the ultimate in the furthest edges of balance. Without it, humanity never would have gone past living in dark, cold caves, while at the same time it is responsible for unstoppable tragedies." He said it all slightly disinterestedly, as if evolution and arson were equally pointless to him. "It scours the earth clean for new life and takes away entire centuries of growth and development. It warms and it kills. Fire Dragons are wildly conflicted creatures: quick to anger, extremely destructive, morally ambiguous, and prone to insanity. While no more of them have turned to the Heylin than other elemental Dragons, they are much more likely to simply go insane, usually out of overwhelming power or fury."

"That's positive," said Kimiko bitterly. She was probably going to go crazy, huh? That was just _great_.

"You know it's true. There have been moments in your life where you get angry enough to want to burn everything around you, haven't there?"

"It's like that for everybody."

"Not with the kind of intensity you're familiar with." She thought she saw him smirking, but if he was, it was a twitch that vanished when she tried to focus on it. "Fire is unlike the other three elements in that while their destructive power eventually reaches a peak - storms, avalanches, and floods come and go, limited by distance or gravity or power - fire is limited only by what there is to burn. And eventually, _everything_ burns."

"That's not true."

"What doesn't burn melts or evaporates." Chase's eyes looked strange in the torchlight; the pupils, fairly wide, reflected glints of flame while the golden irises seemed to nullify any light. "Even manmade materials designed as fireproof can't hold up under extreme temperatures."

"But fire's not unstoppable." Even if it was her element, Kimiko wasn't some sort of pyromaniac. She wasn't going to pretend Chase was lying just to defend it. "Otherwise the whole planet would have burned down a long time ago."

"It's difficult to stop. So far, people have only used two methods: crushing it completely, whether by drowning it or choking it, or by trying to control it. Neither one is guaranteed to work, especially when you use fire to fight itself." She stared as he continued. "Your task, unluckily for you, will be exactly that: controlling your flames with the flame itself. You can't smother any accidental blazes because all you have is more fire. Control it, corral it, bring it to heel … and don't let it escape your power in the first place."

"I can do that."

"It only sounds easy."

There was that flicker of a smirk again, a tiny pull at the corner of his mouth.

"Fire is a ravenous monster, and known to bite the hand that feeds it."

Kimiko scowled again, feeling the anger start to rekindle in her heart. It never really went out, and in the face of Chase's smug, self-assured knowledge, it made her want to do something to take him down a peg or nine. She glanced at the iron burner in the middle of the table, remembering the little fire that was glowing underneath. Her gaze slid to the torches on the walls, flickering and dancing in the ephemeral way of flames. Even if there hadn't been anything available, she could have superheated the air and made maybe the carpet or the paint on the walls catch fire. Or Chase's hair.

"I wouldn't recommend it," Chase said.

"Recommend what?"

"Trying anything." He reached out and tapped the iron burner. "Whatever damage you do to my lair you'll have to repay in blood."

"I wasn't going to try anything."

"Of course you weren't. You were just admiring the décor, I'm sure."

Kimiko gave Chase a pointed glare, which he ignored in favor of dousing the flame below the table and standing up. He reached out and pulled on one of the torches; there was a rumble, and a portion of the nearby wall sunk in and slid away to reveal a dark, underground path leading deep into the earth.

"This way."

And, ignoring her expression of extreme reluctance, Chase turned and started down the barely-lit tunnel.

Eventually, Kimiko did follow him, though she did so ready to attack the first thing that moved toward her. The tunnel wasn't lit with torches, but by strange and shadowy lamps hooked into the ceiling at too-wide intervals. They made the long shadows even longer and turned Chase into a spiky silhouette - but at least he was still visible.

The walk was a long one. To her surprise, they emerged not in the middle of the land of Nowhere, but in a lush green forest of bamboo, the ground covered in ferns, the air slightly damp. Kimiko looked around at the moss-covered jut of stone they'd come out of.

"Where _are_ we?" she asked, awed.

"An oasis in the middle of my territory." Above them, barely visible through the endless green leaves, was a cloudy gray sky. "I planted the beginnings of it almost a thousand years ago, and have kept it hidden from the world ever since. I don't come here often, but on occasion it serves as a respite from the idiocy of the rest of the world."

A barely-touched forest in the middle of deserted gray mountains … Kimiko couldn't imagine why Chase had brought her here, of all places.

"It's … beautiful," she admitted, because it really was. Even if he'd planted it, it was still nature at its finest, which was a stark contrast to how he usually treated beauty in the world. "But what does this place have to do with my training?"

"It's going to help teach you finesse and control." Chase turned to face her fully, his expression flat. "What you usually do when faced with an enemy is to blast him with fire until there's nothing left to burn, or until you can't see him any more. I'm sure you've seen what kind of destruction results from this. What you'll do here is aim to hit me with your flames _without_ so much as singeing a single stalk or leaf."

A few leaves fluttered past as he spoke, and Kimiko glanced around. Other than the small clearing just outside the stone exit, the entire place was filled with bamboo. There couldn't have been two feet of straight, clear space anywhere in the forest.

"Uh … you mean, weave it between the bamboo?"

"Eventually." Chase turned and strode to the opposite side of the little clearing, then faced her again, his hands clasped behind his back. "For now, we'll start with something a little more suited to your skill level."

A spike of rage made Kimiko ball her hands into fists and nearly forget about the trial to come. She brought up both arms and blasted a stream of fire straight at Chase's chest only to have him snatch it out of the air and crush it in his palms, which, by all rights, shouldn't have been possible. Smoke rose from his fingers and she could smell burnt cloth in the air, piercing the fresh cool breeze of dew-soaked bamboo.

"Thinner." He tapped his chest, right over his heart, with a still-smoking hand. "Aim to leave a hole in me, rather than charring me beyond recognition."

A _thin_ flame? Wasn't the point of fire that it was huge and all-devouring? Hadn't he spent time telling her that precisely? How was this controlling fire with fire? With a grimace, Kimiko focused her energy and her anger into a laserlike line, and the resultant flame was a blasted comet half the width of the first attempt. Chase caught it at his chest, and to her satisfaction was shoved back a few paces.

"Better." For a second she thought his hands were burned black, but he didn't look pained at all. "Again."

So again she hit him with a narrow flame that moved like a bullet. He demanded she drag it out, make it a _flame_ rather than a fireball, and she did so after a few furious tries. Every time he caught it, and every time a little spark of concern asked whether or not he was deliberately burning himself to protect his forest. It wasn't concern for his well being, but she'd never seen him willfully take damage before unless he was trying to manipulate them. It made her suspicious.

Eventually he called a halt. Kimiko leaned against a tall stalk of bamboo and wiped sweat off her forehead, watching Chase carefully. He was very carefully peeling off the burnt remains of his gloves. At his elbow, his skin was still deathly pale and human, but as he pulled away the gloves, the skin started to … the only word for it was crack. It was giving way to the ugly greenish scales he had when he was in his dragon form. His hands were covered in them, and there was no way his fingernails could be even remotely considered anything but claws. The scaled palms were black with the ash of crushing out flames, easily wiped clean with the discarded gloves.

He glanced up at her as he did so and raised an eyebrow.

"Something interest you?"

"What? No." Kimiko shook her head rapidly and stood up straight. "I just didn't know you could do … that."

"It's not something I usually try, but I'd rather expend the effort and pain it requires than risk letting a single flame get away."

Expend the effort and _pain_? That was definitely unusual, and Kimiko kept it in mind rather than asking about it. He'd probably get a little too angry if she did.

And then he was approaching her, folding up the ruined gloves and putting them away in a pocket somewhere. She matched him glare for glare and folded her arms across her chest.

"So now what?"

"Now you try that again while I'm in the trees." Her expression barely twitched, but it did, and he saw it. "Yes, it will be difficult. Yes, I am expecting you to be successful almost immediately. Consider this. You appreciate this forest, don't you?"

"If that means I like it, then yes. It's nice."

"Nice." There was an echo of bitter disbelief there for a second. "Regardless. You'd be upset if it was burnt to the ground, correct?"

"Probably … "

"Imagine it. In detail."

The dim, lush forest, soft and silent save for the gentle falling of leaves, the uncurling of ferns, the drip of dewdrops falling to the hidden dirt below - reduced to nothing more than a pile of smoking ash to match the surroundings outside and around it. Ignoring the fact that it was technically Chase's forest, it would be a major loss.

"All right, yes, I'd be upset. What about it?"

Kimiko recoiled as Chase leaned in, meeting her eyes with a murderous glare. His pupils were needle-thin in the dull amber of his irises.

"Think of how upset _I'll_ be if your carelessness makes that happen."

The slight hiss in his voice and the brief snap of his teeth at the end of the sentence was more than enough of a threat, more dangerous that the implication of the words. She nodded stiffly and only started breathing again when he leaned back.

"I'm glad that's clear."

He held up one hand and clicked the claws together. This close, she could see that the edges were just a little serrated.

"Because you're going to be paid back in full for every slight damage you do to my forest."

"What? _Seriously? _You can't cut me up just because I accidentally scorched the trees!"

Chase ignored her protests and moved further into the forest. He turned when he was just visible past a few tall green shoots and tapped the spot over his heart again, which was partially blocked by the bamboo.

"When you're ready, Dragon-in-training."

Gritting her teeth and fighting back a spasm of combined rage and worry, Kimiko took a deep breath, settled her feet, and prepared to weave fire.


	6. Chapter 6

From her perch on a table in the dark, smoky cave where Hannibal was working to take over the world, Wuya watched an argument unfold with her chin on her hands, faintly amused.

"So let me get this straight." Hannibal fixed Jack with a flat look. "I tell you to break into an empty temple, and you managed to get caught."

"Not for almost a week!" Jack was leaning against one of the book-laden tables with an ice pack over one eye. "Besides, you just said it - it was supposed to be empty, but it wasn't! It's not my fault!"

"_Furthermore_," continued Hannibal, as if Jack had never spoken, "when you got caught, not only did you have the audacity to come back alive and unharmed - "

"_Mostly_ unharmed!"

" - you came back without so much as a moderately useful piece of information." There was a tic just above Hannibal's left eye. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just throw you to those cats Chase loves so much."

"Because I didn't do anything wrong!" Jack pulled the ice pack away gingerly, revealing a black eye and a slightly damp bandage on his cheek. "You told me to open the vault, so I was opening the vault. I had robots patrolling the place every night, and they never picked up any signs of people, or monks, or anything! Just really mean cats." He prodded the bandage with a wince. "So it's not like I was expecting someone to show up out of the blue."

Hannibal heaved a sigh and rubbed his head irritably.

"You've been patrollin' and didn't even think for a second that they might be keepin' an eye on the place too?"

"Not at night." Jack pressed the ice pack back against his face. "And besides, when I got caught, I didn't tell them anything! Where you were or what you're doing or anything."

"You want a gold star or somethin'?"

Jack's face fell, and he scowled at Hannibal, though the effect was ruined somewhat by the drips of melting ice water smearing the black makeup under his eyes.

"Come _on_. That means I'm loyal, right? Trustworthy? In an evil way!"

"Boy, I don't trust you any further than I can throw you when I'm a half-inch high." Hannibal sifted through a pile of books peevishly. "Not tellin' those old coots where I am is the _least_ I expect out of you as a minion." Jack riled at the implication he was only a minion in Hannibal's eyes, but any rebuttal went ignored. "If you want somethin' even remotely close to trust, then you've gotta get that vault open quick, quiet, and bring me back all the stuff they've got stored inside."

"Why? What's in there that's so important?" Jack gave Hannibal a suspicious look, but the demon bean only waved him off irritably.

"Never you mind. Now get crackin'!"

With a deeper scowl and a haughty sniff, Jack tossed the ice pack in his backpack and stormed out of the room. Wuya watched him go, then glanced at Hannibal, one slender eyebrow raised in question.

"Why _are_ you so insistent that he get into the vault?" she asked. She knew why _she_ would be - all the Wu she could ever possibly want - but Hannibal was more or less content with the Moby Morpher. He returned her look with a shrug, glancing briefly at the door.

"I gotta keep him occupied somehow, don't I?"

Neither of them spoke as they heard a half-snort, half-groan at the door followed by retreating footsteps. Wuya leaned back and stretched.

"So you don't care if he gets all the Wu and tries to double-cross you?"

"Not particularly." Hannibal pushed aside books and maps and star charts idly. "The Wu's nothin' more than pretty toys compared to what's _really_ buried down there."

"Oh?" Now Wuya paid very close attention to every tic and twitch, every word Hannibal said, though outwardly she was as languorous and only vaguely interested as ever. "You think those old monks are keeping secrets?"

"More than secrets, m'dear witch." Despite the cracked and dreadful grin, Hannibal looked almost sly. "Rituals, especially summonin' ones, need a heck of a lot of power behind 'em, and those temples are loaded with artifacts that I need to make sure this goes off without a hitch. Old artifacts, too, not Dashi's handmade ones."

"And there's one in that vault?"

"Without a doubt. Put there ages ago, back when they were first buildin' the place. Or rebuildin', as the case may be."

A flash of black and red and gray came flying in the room and settled on a stack of scrolls. Hannibal's parrot ruffled its feathers and looked around reproachfully until he pulled a bag of birdseed out from under a table for the bird.

"When Jack gets in there, he can have all the Wu as far as I'm concerned. Or you can, of course, if you beat him to it." Another charming, ingratiating, cracked-tooth smile. "So long as you leave what I'm lookin' for alone. Once I've got that power, I can finish the ritual, and from then on out, the Wu won't even be a pebble in my path."

"How do you know they're not going to try and stop you from getting to it?"

"They very well might, but not if they peek back in and see Jack plodding away trying to get those Wu. Boy's not even aware of what goes on outside his own bedroom; how's he gonna know what happened a thousand years back?"

Wuya snickered, and Hannibal laughed, and Jack, who'd never stopped listening at the door despite evidence otherwise, smirked and rolled his eyes and snuck away down the dark tunnels that lead back to the surface.

.-.-

Initially, Omi had been insanely jealous of his friends. He wanted to be the one getting the special training, even if it was from Chase Young of all people. He wanted to be shown the extents of his elemental power that he didn't know were there and push himself to the greatest limits imaginable. Every day for three straight days he fought the tigers left behind and tried not to get eaten while also trying to conquer the envy he felt bubbling up in him as he watched one of his friends disappear to grow stronger. He could (sort of) understand why Raimundo got to go first, but not Clay and Kimiko. Hadn't he been a monk the longest? Wasn't he technically the furthest along, if not the highest ranked?

But as the days passed and they returned, nightly, from whatever training had come, the envy quieted and cooled and eventually froze over into a sick sort of feeling in his stomach. Envy was a dark and bitter emotion with a tendency to stick around and remind you of your worst thoughts long after it should have been gone, but in the face of friendship and real concern, it didn't stand a chance. It dwindled and faded as Omi watched his closest - his _only_ - friends come back from their training battered, bruised, and very nearly broken.

Raimundo had bruises turning purple and yellow spanning half his body or more and was constantly distracted. Clay was bloody and exhausted, barely able to lift his arms even to eat. Kimiko bandaged and rebandaged her arms, wiping away blood and wincing at the feeling of anything at all brushing thin but painful burns. The vast majority of Omi understood perfectly well why this was happening as he got food and water and medical supplies for his friends, wrapping ice and soaked bandages around bruises and cuts: because Chase Young was evil and didn't like them and would take any opportunity he had to make sure they suffered. Just because he had to fight the same enemy they did didn't mean he had to be _nice_ about it.

Yet there was a small and vocal part of the monk that was angry and confused and disbelieving. Omi knew he always tried to think the best of people, and maybe that was what kept his thoughts moving in circles, but he also knew he was living with memories he shouldn't have had.

It was exhausting trying to keep up with everything sometimes.

On the fourth day after the elemental training had started, with Omi and Raimundo ready to help Clay if he needed it and Kimiko stridently refusing anyone's assistance, Chase met them in the combat chamber with tigers at his heels and fixed his glare on the smallest of the monks.

"If you hurt him … " Kimiko warned, moving to fold her arms across her chest and regretting it almost immediately.

"I'd think that's a given," Chase said wryly without taking his eyes off Omi. "Considering the rest of you."

"It's okay, Kimiko." Omi met Chase's glare steadily. "I will not let him bring undue harm to myself."

"Really, now." There was a sneer in Chase's voice, and he swept past the monks, Omi following after some hesitation. Raimundo, who'd healed up fairly well since his training, gave Omi a thumbs-up before he left.

"Kick his butt!" he whispered, and Omi smiled weakly before turning and disappearing down the hall.

It was a long walk - or maybe it just felt that way, or maybe Chase was just drawing it out - giving Omi time to catch up and try to figure out what to say next. He hadn't had a moment to speak with Chase alone since he'd accidentally created the alternate world.

Which was the one thing he simultaneously did and didn't want to talk about.

They entered a chamber with a quiet pool that vanished into the darkness of a cave, and as Chase paused to look into the depths, Omi finally spoke.

"I wanted to - "

"Whatever you're going to say, young monk, it can wait."

Omi deflated a little, but soldiered on nonetheless.

"No, it cannot. The last time we met - not in battle - it was in a world the opposite of this one. One I caused out of pride and … hope." _Foolishness_, said the little angry part of him, but he swatted it away. "I want to ask if you recall any of it?"

"No," said Chase so sharply and abruptly that Omi knew he was lying. "Are you finished?"

_No, I'm not!_ he heard himself yelling in the privacy of his own head. _You are a liar and a bad one at that, Chase Young, and I will know what you remember! You must remember being good! You must remember what it was like and realize that your evil ways are no longer enough!_

"Not particularly," he said out loud.

"Too bad." Chase turned, his face perfectly schooled to calm disdain. "Come over here."

Reluctantly, Omi did so. They stood by the edge of the water and watched their reflections in the still, nearly mirror-like surface.

"Water," Chase began, "is a fickle element. It's the ultimate balancing act: too much of it is as bad as too little. It can take on any form it pleases and control the other elements to some degree. It quenches fire, decimates earth, and weighs down air. It can never have full control, of course," he said, somewhat dismissively, "but it's still an extraordinarily powerful element. Droughts and floods and storms are all dependent on it; life itself would not exist without it. A dry wind is breathable but damning without moisture."

From the carved stone ceiling above the pool, a single drop of water fell and left behind slowly-spreading ripples.

"Thanks to all that, and regardless of how damaging it can be, Dragons of Water tend to be arrogant, narcissistic, power-hungry, and entirely too full of themselves, with the sorts of egos that eclipse entire suns. They think because they have an element so integral to the world, they're entitled to accolades and adoration from everyone around them, and can't see past their own pride to realize that they do, in fact, have flaws."

Omi felt himself going slightly red at the implications, embarrassed and stung by Chase's scathing words, but at the same time, he glanced sidelong at the other man.

"You did not like Grand Master Dashi very much, did you?"

"I did not."

"Not even when you two were friends?"

"We were never _friends_," Chase hissed, his eyes narrowing at some distant memory. "Never in the way you might imagine it, anyway."

"He did not seem so bad when I met him." Omi considered his first brief foray into the past. "A little lazy, but not … everything you said."

"You knew him for what - less than a day? I knew him for over ten years before I became what I am, and for some decades after that." Chase folded his arms and sneered. "He was _everything_ I said and more. Brilliant, yes, and skilled, or else he never would have become a Dragon, but I never respected him."

"Not even for creating the Shen Gong Wu?"

"You'll notice I avoid using them whenever possible." The pool finally stilled, reflecting the cave roof in blue once more. "Half of them were nothing more than practical jokes, anyway."

"Better a joke than something meant to control and command." Though, thought Omi, some of them did seem exceptionally silly.

"Perhaps." Chase snorted. "If nothing else, he had a very strong moral sense. He always aimed to do what was right, rather than necessarily what was good."

Omi glanced up at Chase, ready to ask what _that_ meant, but Chase held up a hand to keep him silent.

"Enough about him. This is about you and your element. No doubt you resemble him in many ways, but you are not him, and if the world is lucky, you never will be."

It sounded like an insult. Omi scowled.

"Many potential Dragons of Water have fallen to the Heylin because of their lust for power and need for superiority. They're quite similar to Dragons of Wind in that way, despite the historical disagreements between the two. But Water Dragons often feel entitled to their success, rather than denied of it. It's easy to deceive a Water Dragon with enough flattery."

And now Chase glanced down at him, smirking slightly. Omi's scowl deepened.

"You do not need to remind me of my failings."

"Don't I?" He almost laughed before turning his attention back to the pool. "When they aren't paragons of self-righteous stupidity, Water Dragons can become exceptionally powerful leaders with an eye for balance and fairness. Otherwise, they can cause entire worlds to drown."

"So you will be training me on … fairness?"

Chase gave him a Look.

"I hope you're joking."

Omi beamed, even in the intensity of Chase's derisive scorn.

"I know there is something in you that is not all doom and bloom."

There was silence for a few long moments before Chase spoke:

"Gloom."

"That too."

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Your unnecessary dedication to trying to find good in me is grating," he growled. "No, I will not be teaching you fairness, though balance may have some grounding. Right now, my task for you is a simple one, and one that I want you to focus on with everything you have."

"I shall!" Omi settled into a fighting position, ready to call the water in the pool to his command. "No task is too great for me to accomplish when it comes to my element!"

"This one may be trickier than you're used to." Omi twitched as he felt Chase's hand, cool despite the glove, on the back of his head. "People try it every day and fail, often spectacularly."

"What is it?"

Chase leaned down, and when he spoke, it was quiet and almost murderous.

"_Survive_."

Omi felt the grip on his head tighten just before he was shoved under the water.

It was cold. It was _beyond_ cold. For a pool in the center of an active volcano, it had no right to be so cold. The shock of it exploded in Omi's head and cut straight to the marrow of his bones, freezing him in place and forcing the air out of his lungs. For a moment he couldn't move or think or breathe.

Then he felt tiny pinpricks of pain on his skull and realized: Chase hadn't just thrown him into the water, he was holding him under it. It wasn't just the start of a training session, to see if he could control the water while being in it - _survive_, Chase had said, and it hit Omi harder than the cold of the water to realize that Chase might fully intend to drown him right here.

With that realization, he started to thrash wildly. It wasn't trained, it wasn't impressive or even martial arts - it was just pure human survival mechanism, ingrained in the blood and bones from the time when people knew venturing outside the light of the fire meant certain death. He pulled at the fingers digging into his head and tried to tear at the arm holding him down, but it was unmovable. The water, once so familiar and integral and friendly, was crushing him, stealing his breath, choking and suffocating him - it was his element, he was supposed to control it, it wasn't supposed to _kill him_ - he was going to _die -_

Just as his struggles started to weaken, Omi was dragged out of the water and dropped on the pool's edge. He choked and coughed and spat out a mouthful of water - but he was still alive, and every painful breath was almost a relief. Chase, kneeling nearby, watched him with disdain evident on his features.

"I suppose you technically succeeded," he said. Omi glared at him and sat heavily, trying to warm himself up.

"That was not training!"

"Yes it was." Chase flexed the fingers of the hand that had dragged Omi underwater. "Your element is deadly, and you need to realize it. What do you think happens when a river breaks its banks and floods everything built nearby? Or when a tidal wave hits the coast and pulls an entire city out to sea? This is the first thing I told you: too much water is as deadly as none. Nothing on the land can survive in a desert _or_ under the dark waves."

"I know what my element is!"

"Then don't let it overwhelm you again."

"I could not focus! It was too cold, and I was not prepared - and how is this training?"

"When your own element is trying to kill you, you still have to control it. _That_ is what you need to learn. Even when it wants to drag you into its depths and crush you, _you cannot let it do so_. Otherwise, you're not fit to be a Dragon - you're not even fit to go on living."

Omi stared angrily at Chase. Every word made sense, and even the sentences did, but it still stung to hear it from Chase Young, the man half of him remembered as a friend and teacher and fellow monk who never would have done something like this.

He watched as Chase raised his hand again.

"Are you ready to try this a second time?"

"No, but I do not have a choice, do I."

Chase smirked, but it didn't reach his eyes. He lashed out and caught Omi by the back of the skull and forced him under the water again, but at least this time, Omi was ready for it.

The cold wasn't as big a shock this time around, and he managed to keep his held breath in. Kicking to fight the pressure holding him down, he tried to think of how to get out of this. Create a whirlpool and drag them both under? No, he couldn't move enough for that. Split the pool? But he didn't know how deep it was, or how far it went. Maybe he could rocket himself out by making the water into jets? He tried, sweeping his arms out and down, forcing blasts out and down from his sleeves. The pressure got heavier as he pushed up as hard as he could.

But Chase wouldn't relent. No matter how fast the water moved, Omi couldn't get his head to the surface, and his lungs were starting to tap at his ribcage and mention that _right now_ would be a great time for some fresh oxygen. Part of him knew that Chase wouldn't let him drown, but to know that he was going to be shoved back under every time he failed until he succeeded wasn't a very pleasant thought. It would only get more difficult with every attempt. He had to do this, and he had to do this _now_.

Think. Think! When your element is trying to kill you, you have to control it - right now it wasn't quite his element that was trying to kill him, was it? Omi pulled at Chase's immovable fingers and watched a plan tumble into his mind. If he was just trapped under the water, he could use it to free himself. So why couldn't he just do that here?

Omi shifted again and brought his arms out, down, and up - and the water went with him, sinking briefly and then rising out of the pool, grabbing hold of Chase, and yanking him underwater alongside Omi. The grip loosened and released as he went, though not before tumbling Omi upside-down and getting water up his nose.

Still, it was a victory - and Omi leaped out of the water to take a deep, refreshing breath, though it was spoiled by the burning sensation in his sinuses as water went the wrong way. He coughed and shivered and turned back to the pool.

Chase thrashed and scrambled out of the water like a cat, half-crouched and dripping wet and looking furious - and shocked, to Omi's surprise. The look he turned on the monk was almost frightening in the way it was so unfamiliar.

"Well done," he hissed, almost sounding pained. "Consider this training a success, if a pointless one." He stood up, still hunched, and started quickly if unsteadily to head down a different hall.

"Wait!" Omi jumped up. "You mean we're finished? But - "

"For now!" Chase's voice was definitely pained, and he never stopped moving. "Dry off and I'll come get you later."

Omi watched Chase retreat. All he'd done was throw him in the water - was that really enough to defeat him?

The waves caused by the struggle slowly disappeared into the darkness of the cave, leaving the pool still and silent once more and leaving Omi with nothing to distract him from the thoughts of a world that never was.

.-.-

Omi's sudden return had surprised all of them as they tried to relax in Raimundo's room. He'd been more quiet than Kimiko would have liked, but aside from being completely soaked and chilled to the bone, he was fine. She helped set up a fire in the fireplace and then promptly turned herself out of the room - no matter how good of friends they were, she was still a girl and there was no _way_ she was about to stick around while Omi got changed and let his clothes dry. Let the boys handle that much, she thought - and besides, she was still feeling gross from the morning's tiger fight. It was high time she got clean. _Really_ clean.

Despite their constant exhaustion, the four of them had managed to get a little exploring done, and key to Kimiko's current interests was the set of hot springs they'd found. They weren't real hot springs, but they were pools of steaming water almost too hot to touch. She could get the same effect from the bathtub in her room, sure, but there was something more cleansing about a hot spring. Plus, she was feeling a little homesick for both the temple and Japan - what better way to get a little taste of home than this?

With a set of towels over one arm and a bag of bath supplies on the other, she started off down the halls to the place where they'd found the springs. The door there, tall as it was, was partially open - and standing just outside it was a tiger, idly cleaning its paws. It looked up at her arrival and eyed her a little too skeptically for a normal tiger.

"Oh, I am _so_ not bathing with a tiger around," she said.

"Why?" came Chase's voice from the other side of the door. "She won't judge you."

Kimiko glanced into the room - and promptly flattened herself to the hall side of the door. Not only had Chase been in there, but he'd been in one of the springs. With a dry, neatly-folded towel nearby.

"You will!" she snapped automatically.

"I do that all the time. I don't see how this would be any different."

When there were no sounds of him getting out of the spring, she relaxed slightly, but kept her guard up.

"You cut out on Omi's training to take a bath?" she asked wryly, ignoring the tiger now that it seemed to be doing the same.

"I didn't have a choice." She heard him sigh, sounding aggravated. "I can't say I wasn't expecting him to throw me in the water, but I wasn't expecting it quite so soon."

"So you wanted to warm up … right away?"

"I had to."

"Seriously?"

"Very."

"I'd love to hear why _that_ is." She glanced at the opening in the door, though she couldn't see Chase.

"I suppose you'd have all found out sooner or later," he said. "Though I'd rather you didn't."

Kimiko raised an eyebrow at the obscured voice.

"Find out what?"

"I hope you know what the term cold-blooded implies."

It took a moment for the light go on. It made perfect sense when she thought about it: he turned into a giant scaled lizard-dragon-monster and lived in a volcano. He was always wearing layers and gloves. Come to think of it, she'd never actually seen him set foot in a cold place. She wasn't an expert on lizards or their biology, but she remembered some things from school.

"You can't … control your own temperature, right?"

"Close enough." She heard him moving in the water. "The cold doesn't agree with me, to put it simply. Water as cold as that would kill me more easily than it would kill any of you if I was stuck in it for too long."

"Wouldn't get pneumonia, huh?"

"My heart would stop."

"Oh." Kimiko thought about that for a second. "It's because you're mostly lizard, right?"

"_Dragon._" There was a slight splash and silence, and Kimiko peered in to see him reappear above the surface of the water after a moment. "You, of all people, should know dragons don't need wings to fly."

"They also don't walk around on two legs and try to eat people's heads," she said, looking back down the hall.

"Regardless, I need heat to survive. I certainly hope you and your fellow monks take this information to heart and fail to use it to kill me."

"Like we'd try to _kill_ you," Kimiko muttered, listening as she heard the telltale sounds of Chase getting out of the spring. "That's what you do, not us."

"Of course not." Pure snide disdain dripped off his words. "You'd never have a reason to want to put an end to me permanently, I'm _sure_."

Kimiko almost rolled her eyes. The sound of footsteps came closer to the door, and she stared rigidly ahead until Chase pushed the door next to her open and stepped through - clad, thankfully, in a towel tied around his waist and with his still-damp clothes slung over one arm. He raised an eyebrow at her as she glared at him, handing his clothes to the tiger to carry.

"Still, I'd prefer that one of you actually used a proper killing method if it came down to that."

"Rather than dumping a bucket of cold water over your head?"

Chase snorted and wrung some of the water out of his hair.

"That doesn't even work on witches," he said. "I'd say to enjoy your bath, but that won't really be appropriate if you pick the wrong pool, so … be careful."

He smirked very briefly, no more than a flash of razor teeth, before heading down the hall with the tiger in tow. Kimiko stared at him as he left, mouth hanging open slightly in disbelief - then she shut her jaw, grit her teeth, glared in at the springs and wondered what could possibly be _wrong _about one of them, or if he was just trying to mess with her.

It was probably the latter, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to test her luck.

.-.-

A thunderstorm rolled in that night, and deep under the world, it felt lightning split rock and part sea, and it waited and watched and thought.

And spoke.


	7. Chapter 7

Chase returned to get Omi slightly damp, but significantly less off-put - the tightness was gone from his features, and he moved as easily as he always did, like the pain and horror of the freezing water was hardly even a concern anymore. They went back to the still, quiet pond, but this time Chase sat some distance away, idly wringing water out of his hair as he watched Omi repeat exercises over and over again.

Drops of water clung to the high ceiling of the cave. One fell, hitting Omi in the head as he tried to perform the proper movements for the tenth time and effectively distracting him completely. He made a frustrated sound and dropped his arms.

"Again," said Chase dryly.

"It is impossible!" Omi snapped. "Nobody can make water out of nothing!"

"I'm not asking you to do that. You're taking it from the air." He flicked a few stray droplets off his clawlike nails. "If you can dredge water out from the heart of a desert, you can do this."

"I have never taken water from the desert."

"Really." Chase glanced up at him derisively, one eyebrow raised. "Less experienced than I thought, then. Your masters were unbelievably lenient to the very last."

The words stung, and Omi glared. It wasn't just insulting to him, but to everyone who'd ever taught him. It was almost understandable that Chase would snap about Master Monk Guan, but Master Fung didn't warrant that, and for a second he felt the same anger and hatred for Chase Young that he'd had the very first time they'd met.

"No, they haven't! We have been busy focusing on finding the Shen Gong Wu to keep them out of the hands of Evil - a most daunting task! There was less time for what you think is basic training!"

"There's never less time, only poorly-used time." He flicked a lock of hair over one shoulder dismissively. "Besides - _you_, at least, had a decade of training before the others ever arrived. Shouldn't you have been ahead of the game?"

"I - "

But Omi paused, less stung than he would have been only a few months ago. He could try to insist that he wasn't taught the intricacies of his element before the others. He could claim that, as his friends evidenced, being taught young didn't mean being the _best_ (though that one sorely hurt his pride). Nothing would really matter, though: he knew Chase was just trying to get a rise out of him, or more of one as he'd already succeeded. He didn't soften his blows. He just went straight for the weak spot.

So instead, Omi sighed and stepped back, out of the way of the dripping water, to try again. Chase didn't move, and his expression didn't so much as twitch.

The instructions had seemed simple, but to actually get it right wasn't. _There's water all around you, so thin and fine it can't be seen. If you're trapped somewhere without an active source - or that little trinket you're so fond of - then you can draw it from the air. But it won't come easily - only by force can you get it to obey you and shed its invisibility. _

Omi'd had his doubts about that, since Chase couldn't demonstrate, but he'd insisted it was possible and refused to relent otherwise. So that left the Dragon-in-training to try and figure it out from cryptic words and scorn (which, to be fair, was more than the usual just cryptic words, but that didn't make it much easier). He'd tried for some time to wrench it into being, shove the air around, pull it and enclose it and squeeze it tight enough to _force_ the water into his hands, but nothing was working, and every sweeping movement resulted in an embarrassing silence.

Air wasn't his element! It was Raimundo's, and for however much Omi had tried to master all the elements in the past, his was still water to the core. It felt almost insulting to reach into a friend's element like this, especially with so much frustration and power behind it. There had to be a better way. Some way that wasn't so brutal, so forceful, so … suggested by a warlord prince of evil.

Omi opened one eye to see Chase still watching him, unblinking. He'd proved the man wrong before, hadn't he? Proven that there was a tiny hint of good still left inside, flickering in the deepest, darkest recesses of his heart. So there had to be a way to prove that this could be done _without_ the use of sheer overwhelming force.

Wind and water, wind and water … they both came in waves, they both pushed and pushed against the world. Maybe that was the trick. If the water really _was_ there, then it would still act like it did in the ocean. Just … on a smaller scale.

He took a breath and started to push and pull at the air itself.

He could almost _feel_ Chase's judgmental stare as he moved, but tried to ignore it. No, this wasn't what he'd been told to do, but what he'd been told to do wasn't going to work. Darkness and brutality didn't work when he tried it, no matter what had happened during those few awful weeks he was Heylin. And if it did, then - he wasn't himself anymore.

At first it didn't feel like anything was happening - that, like before, he was just moving without any point or results. That in a few seconds he'd come to an awkward halt and fry under the disdain burning in the air between him and Chase. But as Omi kept trying, kept _reaching_, coaxing and pulling in an insistent way, he felt something. Like a tug on a fishing line, the water was responding.

His heart leapt, and he moved with it. Yes, it was - there! A little more and suddenly he could feel the waves in the air, still invisible but rolling at his touch. Omi pulled them down into each other, white crests crashing unseen and building into a pool in midair. Even with his eyes closed, he knew what was there: swirling waves starting to materialize, first as dancing droplets and then building into bigger streams. It was hard work, but it should have been - and he was succeeding!

Around him, the water started to form in earnest from a thin mist to something more solid. It was weak, and wavering, but it was absolutely there. However much Chase would have liked to argue against it, the proof was right in front of his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched in a scowl as he watched Omi succeed in a way that shouldn't have been so easy, as far as he was concerned.

Omi finally opened his eyes as he moved and almost laughed to see that he was right. The water had formed a thin ring around him, splashing but not dripping, as solid and _real_ as the pool a few feet away. He ignored the pain in his arms and the creeping headache in the back of his skull and kept on going, shifting forward and backward to see if it would come with him - and it did! Trailing after him a little slowly, like it was reluctant to take orders from something that had to breathe to move, the water drifted through the air and stayed in a splashing circle.

Elated, Omi brought his arms up and watched the water shift and move more confidently at his command. It rose and fell and rippled in time with his movements. He tried to make it spin, but that just made it crash and splash more heavily, and he couldn't break the circle to make it into a line. But he could throw it, and after a few more seconds of pulling and prodding to see what else he could do, Omi thrust his palms forward. The strange magic that held it together as one stream stopped, and it flew through the air like a wave to crash down - right where Chase was sitting.

Or where he'd _been_ sitting, a moment ago. Now he was standing a few feet away, brushing stray droplets off his sleeve.

Omi could feel the exhaustion of his exertion creeping onto his shoulders, but he was too elated over his success to let it take hold now. He straightened up and strode forward, stopping just shy of the dragon warlord who was fixing him with an aloof glower.

"That wasn't what I told you to do," said Chase.

"No, but it is what you wanted me to do." Omi smirked, tried to fold his arms across his chest, winced, and let them drop again.

"Your success in this training will only come if you do as I say. Flouting my orders and instructions will get you nowhere."

"I have fluted nothing!" Omi said, still too buoyed by his success to fall for Chase's snide words. "I pulled the water from the air, which was the goal! When I tried it your way, I could not succeed. And if I had, I would not be me." For a second, his confidence faltered as he remembered that dark, brief time he'd been without his good half. "I am a Xiaolin Dragon of Water, Chase Young, and no matter how hard you try, I will never be Heylin. I will never be what you want me to be."

There was a spark of something monstrous in Chase's eyes, but Omi didn't stop smiling even as he felt his bones creak with exhaustion.

"I am sorry to disappoint you."

The silence was tense enough to cut a finger on, but fortunately it only lasted for a few moments. Chase made a faint noise of dismissal and turned his glower into a sneer.

"No, you're not," he snapped. "Don't try to assuage me with platitudes. I know what you are; your escape from my control made that _very_ clear."

"Then don't claim I have failed when I have very clearly succeeded!"

"I'll do as I please. I am, after all, the master here. If I say you've done something incorrectly, then I'm right. That aside, it isn't wise to insult me when you're about to collapse," he pointed out. "I'd be perfectly happy leaving you to try and recover on a cold stone floor."

"I am not about to collapse!" Omi stood himself as tall as he could and marched toward the passageway that lead back to the mountain proper. "I can walk back on my own!"

He made it about five more steps before the weight of all his effort came crashing down on him, turning his legs into jelly. The only reason he didn't crack his head against the floor was because Chase caught him by the collar and hefted him up under one arm.

"Of course you can," was the wry comment that Omi ignored - partly out of spite, and partly because he was too tired to listen.

.-.-

A few days passed. The monks recovered. Chase made no more attempts to drag their elemental powers out of them personally, though he made remarks that were cause for concern.

Master Monk Guan came by again, making sure they weren't too badly hurt and casting a dark look at Chase when the monks showed off their wounds. He seemed the most angry about Kimiko's burns and Clay's gashes, and they could all tell he was in a grim mood when he and Chase disappeared to talk.

Dojo stuck around, considering the lunch spread available, and told them all about the progress the temples were making on actually finding Hannibal and the shards.

"It's not good," he said as he picked through the food to make absolutely sure nothing contained dragons or dragon by-products. "They found the old hiding place and it looks like it got hit by lightning. Split a mountain straight down to the base! And of course there's no evidence of which way Hannibal went."

"Not even some feathers? That bird o' his sheds a lot, far as I can recall."

"Not one." Satisfied, Dojo picked up a plate of meat buns and scooted back to the edge of the table. "Master Fung says he's being very careful for someone that doesn't care if we know he has the shards."

"He's probably just taunting us." Raimundo stole a meat bun before the entire pile disappeared and leaned back in his chair. "That's an evildoer thing. The only difference between him having them and if Jack had them is that Jack would be crowing about it instead of assuming we all know it was him."

"I think there's a _little_ bit more difference than that," said Kimiko, but she was grinning.

"Jack would probably put 'em on display somewhere," snickered Clay.

"And then life would be so much easier."

"Or scarier." Raimundo paused with the meat bun halfway to his mouth. "I mean … imagine what _Jack_ would wind up doing if he could change the world."

There was silence.

" … well, I guess Hannibal is probably worse, but … "

The discussion lapsed into the horrors they imagined of a world where Jack reigned supreme, though without Omi's input. He stayed quiet, munching on a pear, remembering that he'd seen that world once.

Like Kimiko had said, there were probably worse futures out there - ones where demons broke open the sky to let fire rain down. But at least there, they could fight evil together, and rise or fall as one.

Those last few seconds in a future where he'd never been present had been a kind of horrible even Hannibal hadn't yet approached.

"So anyway," Dojo said, interrupting the conversation, "there haven't been any real leads, not even after they caught Jack snooping around the temple grounds and trying to break into the vault. He just said he wanted the Wu."

"That sounds like Jack."

"But he might still be working for Hannibal." Kimiko looked at Dojo. "He didn't say anything about that?"

"No, but he sure whined about the temple cats a lot. Not that I blame him."

"He probably just wanted to steal the Wu while we were out," said Raimundo with a shrug. "Showed up all high-and-mighty, got greeted by nobody, figured he could take a chance and run off with everything we had. He take any?"

"Nope. Vault's been sealed for good until we get this mess fixed." Finished with two more trays, Dojo moved on to a tureen of soup before reconsidering and going for the fruit bowls. "They tried following him to see if he went somewhere, but he just went home and - "

"Wait - you let him go?"

Dojo gave them a flat look.

"Do you _really_ think we wanted to listen to him whining all day?"

There was a general grumbling of agreement.

"Still," said Raimundo, "couldn't you have just chucked him in a basement somewhere? Or had someone watch him to see if he went sneaking to someone else's lair? I get that we're the good guys, here, but he might cause some serious havoc when we're not expecting it."

"It's Jack Spicer. We'll be fine!" Dojo spat out an apple core and picked a few errant seeds out of his teeth. "Besides, other than the vault, we're kind of lacking in basement space."

"The further he is from the temple, the better," Clay said firmly, before Raimundo could jump back in with a new argument. "There's nothin' good he can be doin' there, and even if he is off helping the bean, it can't be too big a problem. Whenever he tries to help it's like lettin' a fox in a hen house. Whole lotta noise and mess, not a lot of good."

And that was that, it seemed. Clay had a good point, and no amount of devil's advocate was going to get the argument going again, so Rai gave up and prodded Dojo for more information on Hannibal instead. Kimiko wanted to know more about the shards - if there was anything definite about them, or if it was just another object of nebulous potential - and Clay chimed in on that. Omi asked if everyone was still doing well, because they were the monks he'd grown up learning from.

Everyone was fine, and nothing was certain, and Hannibal was inscrutable as always. Without much real information to trade, lunch started to seem like a better option. There probably would have been a fight to keep Dojo from demolishing the entire table had a roar not broken through the stillness of the lair. It was absolutely Chase's roar: guttural and two-toned, missing the rumbling undertones of the lions and tigers that lurked in the shadows.

The entire group jumped up and rushed toward the hall Guan and Chase had disappeared through. It lead back to the main chamber, and they came to a screeching halt before they got very far - the two men were on the stairs, Guan with his spear out and Chase looking like he was on the edge of transforming.

It wasn't a good look. There was a pull to his face that looked almost painful; same with the arch to his back. Usually they only saw the change when he was going through it at high speed, so to see it frozen like this - it made Omi cringe, and he knew he wasn't the only one.

Neither looked over. The silence was on the edge of shattering, so it was a good thing Guan's perpetual calm broke it.

Nearly perpetual, anyway.

"Everything is fine, young monks. Go back to your meal."

"Everything's _fine_?"Raimundo looked between the two warriors with a raised eyebrow and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Dude, you can't actually expect us to believe that."

"It's an argument we've had many times before. You don't need to concern yourselves."

"And it always winds up like this?"

"Usually."

Neither man was moving, but Chase slowly started to drift back onto the human spectrum. Still, there was a hiss to his voice when he spoke.

"I suggest you listen to him before I start making similar requests, and believe me, they won't be so polite."

"We will only leave if you can promise us there won't be any bloodshed," Omi said as sternly as he could, ignoring Dojo's frantic tugging at the back of his shirt.

Chase almost laughed at that, his mouth a little too wide and his teeth a little too long. Guan shifted his grip on his spear.

"There's always _some_."

"Never significant."

"More's the pity." Chase flexed his fingers - claws - briefly. "If you think you can stop us in the state you're in, Omi, you clearly spent too much time underwater."

That stung a little, and Omi scowled even if it was true. None of them were in good enough shape to try and get between a master monk and a murderous monster, not even Raimundo. Then again, it was unlikely any of them would have tried it on their best day, either.

But the interruption was enough. Already Chase had wrangled himself back under control for the most part, and Guan had lowered his spear. Whatever this old argument was, they'd managed to make it wait.

Until next week, at least.

Guan left soon afterward, promising to bring them more information even if it was boring, mundane, and about the various hidden temples' daily lives. Chase left his tigers to finish off the day's training and disappeared into the depths of the lair. They wondered: what kind of argument could make _Chase_ sulk like that? For Jack or Wuya the potentials were endless, but …

They discussed it as they went to breakfast the next morning. The tigers had not been kind the night before, and they'd wanted all the time they could get to recover from that.

"My guess is something from the ye olden days," Raimundo suggested, dropping into his seat with a wince. "I'd put money on them having a whole bunch of issues from all that."

"No doubt," agreed Clay, "but I don't think they'd be talkin' about that business when they're trying to get along to beat Hannibal."

"You don't think it was about us, do you?" Kimiko rubbed her thumb on one of the bandages still wrapped around her arm. "They were arguing about it when they left."

"Wouldn't be an old argument."

"That might have been a lie to try and keep us out of it."

"Master Monk Guan would not lie."

And then Chase cut in, right behind Omi.

"About that, he might."

Everyone jumped. Chase was quick and quiet but there hadn't been so much as a change in the air to reveal his presence, and yet - here he was, watching them with an expression of mild disdain. He glanced between them and moved away from Omi, pulling a stray chair out from the table and sitting down to eat.

When nobody said anything, he sighed and leaned back in his seat.

"This _is_ where I eat my meals as well, you realize. Just not usually when you're here."

"Why the sudden change?" Kimiko asked with a scowl.

"I'm feeling unusually charitable today."

"Define 'charitable'."

"Exactly how you'd define it. I know for a fact that nobody - much less Guan - has been particularly forthcoming with information about what this whole affair is about. They won't give you details or answer your questions. So I will."

"That's not charitable, that's just suspicious." Raimundo leaned forward with his elbows on the table and watched Chase carefully, though there was more than a little interest in his voice. "You're suddenly a bastion of good will and knowledge when everybody else is fortune-cookie vague? What's the real reason?"

"Charity and spite, then. Does it matter either way? You're getting what you want, and don't try to tell me you aren't a little fed up with how fast all this has gone."

"This is about that argument, isn't it," Clay said.

"Not directly." Chase's smile was thin as he idly brought a bowl within reach. "It's a result of it, if that's what you're asking."

They glanced at each other, and the unspoken words between them were: maybe he's lying. But maybe he's not. Why would he suddenly jump the gun like this? He _was_ furious during that almost-a-fight. Spiting Guan wouldn't be outside his modus operandi. But for our benefit?

Is there something we shouldn't know? Why would there be? But if we haven't been told, then maybe it's for our own good. Or …

They trusted Guan and the senior monks, but none of them liked being kept in the dark - if they were at all. Maybe Chase was just going to use this as a chance to trick them all and turn them against the Xiaolin Temple.

But …

Raimundo broke the silence first, stabbing his fork down into a plate of greens.

"What was that argument about?"

"He doesn't approve of me treating the four of you like training dummies. About the enterprise at hand, if you would," said Chase irritably. Raimundo smirked briefly.

"Okay. I'll listen. What's so important about those shards that they had to get buried in a mountain?"

Surprisingly, Chase didn't give a slight, smug smile and lean back in his chair to enlighten them all. He didn't even grin. He just picked up his chopsticks and pulled something unidentifiable out of the bowl to eat.

"Regardless of the truth of the legend, or whether or not the artifact is legitimately the shards in question, the story goes that the universe was once nothing but absolute chaos. Over time, this chaos coalesced and became an egg, and inside the egg grew yin and yang - and Pan Gu, who broke the egg when he woke."

Omi nodded. It was a familiar enough story to him. The others listened in careful silence.

"He created the world with what remained, including the shards off the egg," continued Chase, "forming the heavens with the lighter pieces and the earth with the heavier ones. After a time he died, and the more malleable aspects of the world came from his remains, but rumor persists that not every broken piece of the egg was used. A few tiny shards escaped his notice, or fell off during creation. But they would still retain the power of the origin of the universe, and anyone with a functioning brain can see why that sort of artifact would draw … unsavory attention."

"But you said they might not be the real thing."

Chase shrugged. "And they might not be. But they're powerful enough, and so the ancients buried them under a mountain. They assumed even if someone discovered the location, nobody would be able to get them out."

"Until now."

His only answer was a brief baring of teeth.

"So they can do anything?" asked Kimiko, stirring her miso without really paying attention to it.

"Probably not, but they can come close. Reordering the world, altering the paths of time … nobody's gotten a chance to really try them out, so there's no solid evidence. And unless I'm the one doing the testing, I'd prefer to keep it that way."

Clay snorted.

"Sounds exactly like what Master Fung told us," he said. "This is worth gettin' smug about?"

"And did your dear Master tell you exactly what it is that bean intends to _do_ with the shards, now that he has them?" snapped Chase, a little sharply.

"Awaken a great evil. And I bet you're gonna say you know exactly what it is."

"Because I do."

Clay gave him a wary glare, but Omi cut in suddenly.

"If Master Fung did not know, and Master Monk Guan did not tell us, then - "

" - we shouldn't know?" Raimundo interrupted. "I get what you're saying, Omi, but I want to know what we're fighting. We can handle hearing about it, I'm sure." He shot a glance at Chase, who shrugged.

"Hearing, certainly. And it's something you aren't going to learn from any Xiaolin monks. There are some things even they haven't managed to record on their scrolls."

It was said offhandedly enough, but Omi's spine stiffened. Something the Xiaolin didn't have - something they'd never know? It didn't seem possible. They'd been around for thousands of years!

"So spill. What is it?"

Chase ate another something before speaking, setting his chopsticks down completely.

"I told you that the universe was chaos before it was the egg. It changed shape and took on order eventually, but - like the shards - the rumors went that not all of it became part of the world we know. That there is still unbridled chaos lurking somewhere, untouched by the light and glory of creation."

"It is not just a rumor, is it," said Omi, a little hollowly.

"Not a rumor nor a legend. It's true. Or at least, nearly true." Chase stared into the distance, almost smirking but not quite. "It would be more accurate to say that the chaos got a _taste_ of order and sanity and gained just enough perspective to decide that all this perfect balance needed its opposite. It broke away, a formless monstrosity tainted by the heavens, and tried to corrupt and devour everything being built by Pan Gu. Obviously, it failed, but it left its mark on the world before it was buried far beneath the physical earth and the spiritual worlds."

"What d'you mean, left its mark?" Raimundo paused with a forkful of okra halfway to his mouth. "If we go looking hard enough, we'll find a great big skull burned into the ocean floor, something like that?"

Chase almost laughed at that, grinning in a way that looked more like a sneer.

"Think a little closer to home, monk. Where do you think the Heylin _came_ from?"

.-.-

The wind whipped viciously at the bird as it soared on the updrafts, but buried under the feathers, Hannibal barely even noticed. He might not have noticed even if he was hanging from Ying-Ying's beak. He was too busy focusing on the immediate and critical future, which - while not worrying to someone with his kind of boundless confidence - was putting him more on edge than he'd ever been before.

It was a long flight from his hideout a mile underground to the high mountain temple he had targeted. It was a hard flight, too; eventually they'd be going against the wind, and it was only through Heylin magic that even a creature like Ying-Ying would be able to make it close enough for Hannibal's liking. From there it would only get more difficult. He wasn't built for … well, much of anything, much less a half-mile trek in hard winds, biting snow, and sheer cliff faces.

Made the Moby Morpher a handy little tool to have around. Privately, he saluted Dashi's ingenuity. Man knew how to make magic do whatever he wanted. A shame he never would have given the Heylin a second glance, but some timelines even Hannibal wasn't about to think might be possible.

Ying-Ying dropped sharply, then used the acceleration to whip itself upward over a rocky ledge without getting hurled back by the blizzard. There was an awkward scrabble for purchase, a few nauseous seconds of hanging upside-down, and then - relative stillness. Iron talons gripped a single lonely branch jutting out from between the rocks.

They'd arrived.

Hannibal peered out from between the feathers and saw, through the wall of blinding white, the silhouette of the mountain temple.

All right, he thought, time to get to work.

The Moby Morpher let him change any aspect of his body he needed or wanted to, but while he dearly would have loved to take on a form less vulnerable to the godforsaken wind cutting straight through him - stone or metal, maybe - that would have made the trek even longer, and time was of the essence here.

The guards only changed shifts every twelve hours. He had a minute, maybe two, to do what he needed to do and get out before someone raised the alarm.

Still, it gave him the speed to lunge through the snow instead of trying to burrow through it. Four legs were faster than none, and a good set of claws could catch the stone before he slipped off and had to try again another day (or end up in a sack of frozen peas, _hah_, wasn't that just hilarious). It let him scramble up and over unforgiving obstacles until he finally hauled himself over a fence and, trembling in real cold, scramble unnoticed through a small catflap built into one of the temple's side doors.

Nobody would look twice at a Siamese cat running in from the bad weather, after all.

Even if the red color was really _red_ and not just a speckling of ginger.

Hannibal fought off shivers and trotted through the halls, ducking behind pillars and into shadows whenever someone walked by. It never hurt to be a little more cautious in matters like these. So nobody saw him sneak through the temple, up flight after flight of stairs, past doorways and dormitories and chanting, ignoring the deep temple vaults that held innumerable treasures or the vast temple libraries that held ten thousand years of secrets in ten square feet of scrolls. This was an old temple; it had the old days built into its bones.

And other, more tangible things.

His goal was in a little room off an unremarkable hallway. Unlike so many other temples that buried their most powerful tools in deep, elaborate vaults that practically screamed to be broken into, this one knew that hiding in plain sight was one of the best tricks of all. It looked exactly the same as every other room in the hall, which included 'unguarded', but he knew there was a monk in the shadows somewhere, waiting for the nightly replacement.

He curled up in front of one of the doors and pretended to sleep until that replacement arrived on feet more silent than his own cat ones.

A minute for them to process the rituals, maybe a little more if they wanted to have a quick chat about anything that had happened that day. That was all Hannibal had. As soon as they were engaged and not paying attention to one of the many temple cats who'd just happened to wander up there that day, he quietly shrunk down. Thirty seconds until he was small enough to sneak in under the crack in the door and get back up to his usual size and form. Less than a minute -

To jump up onto what looked like a lantern on a table, surrounded by dark stone with a little door carved in it.

To drop his little bag next to it, pry open the door, and gaze at the pitch-dark pearl within.

It was just a pearl, but it didn't gleam with the sudden light of the room. It reflected a little bit, and dully at that. It wasn't impressive, it was in an unimpressive room, and it was guarded by - currently - two impressively skilled men who applied to the school of disembowel first, ask questions through a spirit medium later. There was no time to admire it or sigh wistfully over just how great he was at going through with really, _truly_ evil plans.

Hannibal pulled a similar pearl out of his bag and switched them in a moment's swiftness. He slammed the little door, closed up his little bag, and hit the floor just in time for the room's door to fly open in a flurry of fists.

Too small to be seen, Hannibal hopped out of the room and scurried down the hall while the two guards cautiously checked to see if there was still a dark pearl in the lantern.

Both of them were satisfied with what they saw, and ignored the haughty red-point Siamese that sauntered down the stairs like it owned the temple, temple grounds, and probably the mountain the temple was built on.

Let Wuya try to play her coy, simpering games on both sides and scrabble with Jack over promises of magic in old monks' basements, he thought. Let the monks run off to the dark side to train. Let Chase try and fail to drag them into _balanced_ ways of thinking.

This wasn't about balance anymore, or at least - not the kind of balance everybody was so convinced was the only _true _balance. This was about leveling the playing field permanently in his favor. Making it even for everyone, except him.

He'd waited centuries for this. Millenia, if he wanted to be honest, but the urge was really cemented during that nice long stay in the Yin-Yang prison.

Like hell he'd leave even the tiniest detail to chance.

Ying-Ying felt the returning weight on his back and lunged out over the mountain again, this time driven by the wind instead of driving against it.


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's Note: _An apology before I start for the ridiculously long delay between this chapter and the previous one. A few real life factors contributed, but mostly I was just out of energy and inspiration, and before I knew it a year had passed.

Hopefully I can start to wrap things up in the next few chapters so there isn't another massive delay before I get this finished.

Thanks to everyone who's read and enjoyed this, especially if you're still here after that wait!

.-.-

The origin of the Heylin (or so Chase said) was the result of a formless, depthless chaos that had taken on just enough intelligence to become evil trying to claw its way into the newborn world and failing.

Clipped edges, broken bits of hardened destruction, fragments of abominable toenails - what little was left behind after order and the world slammed down on the chaos somehow managed to survive in the strange new world creation had … well, created. They took on new forms to adapt, and some went into hiding to bide their time. Others lashed out and became the first known demons.

Hannibal had been one of those creatures, Chase told them. Some fraction of a fraction of a molecule that managed to ooze its way into a new form, albeit a tiny and powerless one at that. Too small to fight, he'd gone into the new world of humans and started to learn about everything there was. He particularly learned about humans themselves, and how malleable they were, and that became his specialty.

The ingrained instinct of the dreadful chaos was to spread itself out as far and wide as possible. Unable to go out and set fire to the world himself, Hannibal went for the corruption route. Until Chase imprisoned him, he was one of the most successful agents of the hidden evil beneath the world. Now he was trying to take that title back. Permanently.

"But Hannibal seems like an on-top kind of guy," Raimundo said, having long since abandoned his food in favor of the conversation at hand. "If he wakes this thing up, that means he's suddenly number 2, doesn't it?"

"Being second to something so unfathomably evil the world itself rejects it is a far better position for him than struggling to conquer a group of squabbling, conniving, backstabbing fiends that are liable to pull his metaphorical feet out from under him, especially considering how little power he actually has." Chase narrowed his eyes. "He won't be completely happy with the outcome, but he'll be able to ignore that in favor of what he's getting in return."

"And what exactly is that going to be?"

"The world," said Chase, turning to fix Clay with a glower, "and everything in it. Think of it in terms of a general acting in the stead of an absent king. While it infests the ether with pure chaos and battles the spiritual forces of all that exists, Hannibal will get to turn everything he touches into an ashen wasteland and personally exact revenge on all those who've ever slighted him. With the chaos backing him up, he'll be nearly invulnerable to any kind of retaliation."

"He's petty enough to do that?"

"Once he's gotten to that point, it won't be considered petty."

A bell started ringing in the back of Omi's head. He couldn't quite place why, though, or what it was trying to alert him to.

"Why hasn't he tried this before?" asked Raimundo. "Like as soon as he got out."

"I assume it didn't occur to him. He was more fixated on immediate things, like revenge and actually seeing the sky." Chase smirked grimly - a brief flash of white teeth like razors - and continued. "If he could have taken over the world himself, through his own machinations, he would have, and I'm sure you noticed him trying. This is more a worst-case-scenario action plan for him."

"I noticed him trying to take us out."

"The Xiaolin are typically his greatest enemy, and historically speaking, a group of training warriors that might one day become heroes of legend are a lot easier to kill _before_ they mature into greatness."

"Might?" echoed Kimiko with a derisive raise of an eyebrow.

"But you were Heylin when you locked him away." Omi leaned forward in his seat, pressing his hands to the cool marble table. His unbridled optimism was more than a little shaken, but it was nigh-indestructible as a rule, and this little question mark at the edge of a sentence was enough for him to grab and hang on to.

"I did say 'typically'." And Chase dismissed it, as usual, the unspoken question swept away with a wave of one gloved hand. "He wasn't expecting his greatest triumph to follow so closely in his footsteps."

"You think someone would have locked him away if he hadn't gotten to you?" Raimundo asked.

It was a casual enough question, but Omi was carefully watching Chase, who paused a second too long before answering.

"Possibly. But that's hardly relevant to the matter at hand. This threat is more important than what-ifs."

_You remember_, Omi thought, feeling both vindicated and stung. _But you refuse to admit it. Why?_

Part of him thought he knew the answer. The rest of him was insistent none of it was true.

"Something worth thinking about," Raimundo said idly. "I mean, you were the only one to really throw a wrench in his plans until we came along; if we're busy fighting the whatever it is he lets out of the bag, are you going to have to deal with him on your own, or is someone else qualified?" He smirked slightly, undaunted by the sour look that crossed Chase's face.

"We can but hope," said Chase. "I'd hate to waste an afternoon trying to beat him again, especially if it means I have to go clean up the mess after the lot of you get smashed into paste trying to fight chaos itself. Guan will probably lend his assistance somewhere along the way."

"We ain't gonna go down so easy."

"Forgive me my lack of confidence." Chase's tone was snide. "I've seen better warriors than you fail in lesser endeavors."

"Better warriors doesn't mean better people," said Raimundo, before Clay could get in another argument. Chase turned a careful look on him, eyebrows slightly raised.

"An interesting theory. I can't say I'm convinced."

"No? You're a better warrior than any of us, dude."

There were a few seconds of silence as the unheard half of the sentence sank in. Kimiko almost smirked, and even Clay nearly cracked a smile. Chase's expression didn't change.

"Point taken," he said, eventually, and the tension in the air relaxed just slightly. "But why would a better person succeed where a better warrior would not?"

"Isn't that the whole reason we're here, instead of hiding out in a cave somewhere while you and Guan and whoever else you can find are out there trying to get this done?"

"Remarkably astute, though I somehow doubt _you'd_ be in the cave. I've heard you're bad about that," said Chase, more than a little testily. Omi winced, but Rai kept grinning even against the dig at his one-time switch to the Heylin. It was a sore point for all of them, and a low blow for Chase to take, but being honorable didn't mean he wasn't underhanded.

It effectively ended the conversation, though. Chase glanced over the table one more time before standing up and brushing invisible dirt off his tunic.

"Training will be delayed this morning. I have something to attend to."

"What?"

"Strangling intruders on my territory." It was sharp and flat and Omi scowled. The response was a sneer. "I don't need to tell any of you what I do. Take the opportunity to prepare yourselves. What comes next for all of you is going to be significantly more difficult to deal with."

He was gone without another word. Their appetites soured, the monks headed back to Raimundo's room.

They filed in dejectedly, but jumped when Clay, the last one in, slammed the door shut behind him with uncharacteristic force. Rai turned to blink at him in surprise.

"Woah. What's up?"

"What d'you _think_?" he said, folding his arms across his chest and then unfolding them again. "It's him! He just keeps pushin' buttons and findin' new ways to insult us. I don't know how you kept from haulin' off on him right there, Rai!"

"You mean the cave thing?" Raimundo shrugged, his hands in his pockets. "It stung, no lie, but he always aims low when we're right about something, or we figure him out. Pretty sure that's how he tries to shut people down when they get past him. Honestly, it's a pretty pathetic tactic. Like a kid calling someone a butthead because they lost an argument." He gave Clay a half-grin. "You can't let him get to you, man. Otherwise he wins and he gets to act all high and mighty about it."

The comparison was unexpected enough to make Omi slap a hand over his mouth to hold in a laugh, and Kimiko choked a little, but Clay didn't even twitch.

"I can't help it. I don't like him, or his attitude. Just listenin' to him is enough to make me want to put a hole in the wall."

"Gotta keep it cool, dude, or he gets what he wants. How's it go? Anger leads to hate, hate leads to - "

"I've seen the movie, Rai." Clay deflated a little, but his shoulders were still tense. "And it starts with fear. I sure ain't afraid of him, so it ain't fear that makes me angry."

"You sure?" said Kimiko, suddenly, one hand resting over the spot where her arm was bandaged under her shirt, and the boys turned to look at her. "Because now that I think about it … when I ran off after him when he brought you back that first time - I was ready to wipe him off the face of the planet because I was afraid you were too hurt to recover, not just because he was there."

The silence was brief, but thoughtful. Omi stared between his friends and realized just how close they'd become over the few years they'd been together.

"See? Kim's got a good point there." Rai grinned fully this time, though it was still a little subdued. "You don't have to be afraid of him to be afraid, and wise old space alien Fungs are right: that can take you some pretty bad places."

Clay looked between Kimiko and Raimundo and sighed, finally smiling a little.

"Alright, alright, I get it. I think I knew what you were sayin' even before this. Just hard to keep it in mind when he starts talkin' like that." Then he paused. "Did you really just call Yoda a 'wise old space alien Fung'?"

"Master Yoda, Master Fung … one's an alien, one's a human, one lives in a swamp, one lives in a temple, they both put unrealistic expectations on other people and then disappear when it's least convenient … oh, and I bet they have the same desk calendar. Come on, the similarities are uncanny!"

And even though he had no idea what Raimundo was talking about, the relief in the air was enough that Omi laughed anyway.

.-.-

Unfortunately, Chase kept his word in regards to their training.

Whether he was actually trying to improve them at a faster rate than before or if he was just being spiteful wasn't clear, but in very short order the difficulty of each day's work ramped up almost to the point of being impossible.

Now in their one-on-one sessions, they didn't just try to improve their elemental abilities: Chase started actual combat training as well, interweaving the two when he felt like he hadn't been particularly difficult lately. What he couldn't teach through a group beatdown he threw at them individually, deriding their choices for defense and insisting they weren't working at their greatest potential. It was like being trained by Master Monk Guan for the first time all over again - even for Raimundo - but where that had been an unexpected sort of savagery, this was just unbearable.

"It's your choice, monk. Stop them, or stop me," were the words that cut across the dry grass between Clay and Chase. Already bruised, Clay was looking frantically between the monster ready to strike and the tiny village at the bottom of the hill they were fighting on. Half a mile away was a cloud of dust raised by an ambush of tigers racing toward the village itself. Part of him thought that there was no possible way Chase was actually going to let his warriors slaughter an entire village just to teach him a lesson in combat or morality or whatever it was he was trying to impart here, but even with the group agreement that he was getting too close to letting his anger get the better of him, he was still suspicious enough of the man's motives that he didn't actually _doubt_ blood might potentially be shed.

He was supposed to pick between letting them get mauled, or him. Self-sacrifice? No. Chase didn't do that. He wouldn't even consider it. Clay dodged a fast strike and rolled away from an outflung fist that buried itself five inches into the dirt.

"The decision shouldn't be difficult. Aren't you a hero?" There was that disdain again, dripping off every word. He ducked under another strike and lashed out on his own, which went neatly avoided, giving him enough space to slide into a specific maneuver.

"Not accordin' to you," he said between grit teeth, "and if you were payin' attention maybe you'd remember I can _multitask!_"

His arms moved together out, down, up - dropping a ditch in the path of the tigers just wide enough to make jumping unwise and bringing up a much closer wall of stone that nearly caught Chase in his forward charge. He jerked back, and when Clay dropped the wall to raise the pit again Chase was rubbing his chin with one black-gloved hand.

"Glad to hear it."

There was similar arrogance in another place and time, in the middle of a dried-out lakebed rife with dust and dirt. Raimundo was choking on it - dirt _and_ arrogance - caught in a windstorm not actually of his own creation, barely able to see six inches in front of his face. He'd pulled up the front of his tunic to filter the sand and dust out of the air he was breathing, but that didn't help to protect him from the rain of blows coming at him whenever he so much as twitched. It was like the thing with the boulders, only with the boulders replaced by a wind that could shave off skin and with the added bonus of being half-blind.

"This won't be a battle with Jack Spicer and his legion of robots," came the hiss on the wind, stinging in his ears more than the flying sand and dirt. "It won't come at you in little pieces at a time, waiting patiently to take its turn to try and kill you. It will come from every direction at once. There will be no leniency, no _escape._ Either you defend from every direction at once or you will _die._"

"No pressure," Raimundo grumbled, eyes shut tight against the wind and sixth senses working overtime. A fist hit him in the knee and made his leg crumple, and he heard a rustle overhead that spoke of a second barely-dodged attack. "No pressure."

Under him the ground was solid, sure, unmoving. Even if the top layers were being whipped around like ocean foam in a waterspout, the rest of it was unmoving and with his knee digging down, it was a lot harder to slip. If he didn't have to worry about being knocked around by his own element he could focus on trying to wrangle it under control, he thought, and rolled to the side, ending up flat on his back, to avoid another out-of-nowhere strike. No, he couldn't control this. It was too much and too wild. Maybe something else …

"Finished already?" The wind whipped the audible sneer into a thin sound. Easy to ignore. Even so, there wasn't much time, and this was going to be tricky enough as it was. Rai let out a breath and reached out into the wind.

Then he gave a shove and forced himself off the ground, hovering for a half second before the weightlessness of the wind surrounding him caught up with the storm and whipped him into it.

It was like being on the worst kind of rollercoaster while blindfolded. He was absolutely certain he'd have whiplash by the end of this, and that was if he was lucky. All the other outcomes he'd been able to think of ended with him getting flung into the distance like a ragdoll, and unlike the ragdoll he'd come off with a nasty pile of broken bones to show for it. So he _focused_, trying as hard as he could to follow the patterns (or not-patterns, whatever the opposite of that was) of the storm, letting it carry him where he needed to go, which was ideally not the ground. It was messy and he almost lost his balance four or five times, all the while thinking _oh god I really hope this works_.

Still frantically trying to keep steady, he tried the trick with the boulders again. It was easy to pick out another figure in the wind because they were the only ones there. Chase was following him, but he was moving too unpredictably to be caught. It was more luck than planning that brought him around behind Chase suddenly, but he got there nonetheless and tackled Chase to the ground, taking him down face-first into the dirt before letting go and -

_Trying_ to let go and vanish back into the windstorm. Chase grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back down. In the dim light obscured by clouds and rushing sand he looked like a murderous shadow.

"Pure luck!" he snarled, to which Raimundo shrugged.

"That's a skill too!"

Sometimes the arrogance lead to two of them fighting him at once. His rationalization was that if he'd already defeated the four of them with ease, two would hardly be a challenge, but as Omi crouched at the edge of a quiet pool he wondered if Chase would have had such an easy time if he tried that again _now_.

At the center of the pool, his silhouette warped by the waterfall Omi was partially hidden behind, Chase was meditating just above the water's surface. Standing on the opposite shore was Kimiko, scowling but silent. Their orders: work together to bring him down. Normally they would have gone after him without hesitation, but then they'd thought about it. They were good friends, but the fact remained that fire and water were polar opposites.

So far, there hadn't been a lot of progress.

Omi put his hand in the waterfall and let the cold of it clear his head. Trying to drag Chase under hadn't worked. Neither had trying to corral him with a ring of fire and a rising wave; the two just got in each other's way. Probably the worst part was that he wasn't even saying anything about it. He just gave them both a contemptuous look that pointedly asked if they had any intention of actually succeeding. It made them both angry, which was exactly the intent.

Yet strangely enough, not as angry as they might have been before. When every word and look was a barb aimed at your weakest points, eventually, they started to mean less and less. Even if Chase was leveling the full capacity of his contempt at them it just didn't sting as much as it used to. Wounds healed and scarred over, grew tougher than before. It was like Rai said: nothing more than an underhanded tactic to make them react the way he wanted them to.

Still, that didn't help out with the current situation a whole lot. Kimiko was still seething, after all. Omi grimaced and splashed his hand down into the pool, where steam was leaving thin clouds in the air.

Steam. Not cooling mist, like there should have been.

He stared down at the unexpectedly warm water. It was a sharp contrast to the freezing cold of the waterfall. Casually, as if he was testing the currents below, Omi moved his hand back under the spot where the waterfall met the pool a few times. There was a definite difference in temperature there.

What was Kimiko doing? Heating the water directly? Could she do that? Or maybe the rocks? Was there a space somewhere underneath the pool where a fire was burning and casting heat up into the water? Did it matter? She was causing a haze of steam to rise over the water, and steam was just water that had gotten light enough to float …

For her part, Kimiko focused as hard as she could on making the steam rise. She didn't dare glance at Omi in case Chase's eyes opened (if they weren't already, barely visible under nearly-closed eyelids) and he caught her trying to convey the idea she had. She just had to hope Omi would figure out what she wanted him to do.

She glared at Chase. Sweat rolled down her forehead into her eyes.

The night Omi had come back from his training (deposited, half-conscious, into the room she and Rai and Clay had been sharing at the moment), Kimiko had mentioned her encounter with Chase at the springs to the others. It had been a vital piece of information, after all - that his body temperature wasn't regulated was a powerful weakness, and one he'd kept so well-hidden she never would have guessed it otherwise - and one that they might need to use in the future. She hadn't quite expected the future to be this _soon_, but now …

It was a nasty trick. It could be bad for them, and worse for him. Omi would realize what she was planning and have doubts by the truckful about it. But neither being straightforward nor trying a sneak attack had worked, so why not go for the low blow? It was the kind of strategy _he_ would use.

Kimiko couldn't make out Omi's expression from where she was standing, but she saw him shift into what looked like a stance. Familiar but not something she could immediately place. Something he'd learned? He had one hand remarkably close to the waterfall.

She'd have to take a chance. As he moved, she stopped focusing, all the power she'd been putting toward keeping the water close to boiling vanishing into the cool air. She saw Chase open his eyes just enough and the start of a smirk crawl onto his face.

And then the cold struck, with a chill that was almost painful in its suddenness.

The steam froze where it was. For a moment it was a beautiful sight, sparkling in the dim mountain sunlight; then it fizzled and evaporated again as Omi sagged out of his stance.

Chase was nowhere to be seen. Kimiko glanced around and saw nothing. She turned around and came face to jawline with an extremely angry-looking warlord, frost glinting on the edges of his sleeves.

"And just _where_," he snarled, "did you pick up that little trick?"

"Where do you _think_?" she said, not smiling, taking a step back to look him in the eyes. Omi ran up beside her as Chase lifted his chin and cast them both a derisive look.

But it wasn't all angry. There was some satisfaction in the murderous gleam of his eyes, too.

In short: they were improving.

.-.-

Master Monk Guan showed up unexpectedly one day. He'd been by only two days before to check on them, and this time it was Chase who announced it, pulling them from their morning training to the rocks just outside his lair's entrance. They were all expecting the worst - even Chase, Omi thought, watching the set of his shoulders as they stood silhouetted by the volcano's light.

But Guan said, "At ease, young monks," and they sighed a little in relief. His words were light even if his countenance wasn't quite as friendly as always. "The world isn't ending just yet."

"But something must be wrong if you've come twice in so many days! What is it?"

"You'll be surprised, I think." He glanced back at Dojo, who hadn't changed back into his usual form.

"It's a Shen Gong Wu, kids!"

There was a chorus of "Seriously?" and "No way!" followed by Chase's disbelieving "You can't be serious." Dojo grinned at them and held up the puffed, tangled tuft of hair at the end of his tail.

"One hundred percent sure about it! I think I know which one, too. There's only one Wu that makes my poor beautiful tail end up like this."

"And we're gonna go get it?" For the first time in a while, Clay sounded really enthusiastic about something.

"Yep! The temple monks don't have the time. Plus, I'm sure you guys could use a break from all this."

Omi looked to Guan, who nodded slightly.

"It will not take you long if your training has been successful. I know Chase will not refuse this, since any extra spiritual chaos will only cause complications in the long run."

Still, they gave Chase a careful glance before making any moves. After a moment he waved a hand dismissively, saying nothing. If he objected, he kept it to himself.

As one they leaped onto Dojo's back, glad for the familiar feel of his scales and the comparative comfort of flying with him. Guan remained on the mountainside.

"Yo, you not coming with us?"

"No, this is your fight more than mine. I have no doubt you'll be fine."

Dojo launched into the air. As they disappeared into the distance, discussing which of the rogue's gallery of villains they were going to run into this time, Guan turned at the sound of Chase's irritable sigh.

"Even from beyond the grave, Dashi manages to inconvenience everyone around him." Chase sneered at nothing, or maybe at memories. Guan shrugged.

"He was always remarkably good at that."

There was silence, and then:

"Will you take some tea this time? I assume we have at least a little while to wait."

Guan hesitated. But after so long, it really did seem unlikely that Chase would poison him. The animosity ran too deep for that.

"Very well."

The tea was a sharp, melancholic blend, one that Chase had evidently left to steep too long, and reminded Guan of the color of mountains just before sunrise. In the small, dim room they drank in silence. Guan organized his thoughts. If nothing else, the tea cleared the excess questions and old grudges out of the way of the information about the threat looming over everything.

"Was this really just about a Shen Gong Wu?" Chase asked suddenly, as if the very thought had passed out of Guan's mind and into his own. Guan set down his cup and folded his arms across his chest.

"Yes, for the most part. If Dojo alone had come, you would have sent him away without even mentioning his arrival to them."

"Because there is no need to send them off at a time like this to fetch trinkets. 'Extra spiritual chaos', really? One idiot can't possibly cause enough trouble to inconvenience the entire universe." Chase's grimace was directed less at Guan and more at the world in general. Likely he was still blaming Dashi, Guan thought.

"We didn't want to take the chance."

"What's one more compared to the mountain you're already taking?"

"They'll be back in an hour, if that. I'm sure you have work to do without them around."

"I made sure most of that wouldn't be an issue, since I thought you considered their training to be the highest priority." He shrugged and set down his own cup, still half-full but only lukewarm. "What's the lesser part of the reason you're here?"

"You've been sensing the changes in the realms, I assume." There had been rumblings - small, but entirely out of place - among the spiritual flows that ran among and between the worlds. Disruptions and shifts, changes that didn't seem like an issue but indicated a greater problem below the surface … monks from every temple in the land, and some from other countries, were congregating at the hidden Xiaolin enclaves to try and find a solution before it was too late.

"I'd notice them if I was deaf and blind."

"Your thoughts?"

Chase snorted.

"You came all this way to ask me my opinion on something? How long has it been since you last did that?"

"Centuries, I'd wager," said Guan. "At least not since the end of Jinn." That visit had been pleasant enough. They hadn't tried to kill each other, for once.

"And in the eight hundred years following, our few meetings have only been fights." Skirmishes with victories on both sides. "Never over anything important, as I recall."

"I stayed out of your way unless it was necessary." Guan felt uneasy, but he wasn't sure why. "And you were always traveling, so that was simple enough."

"I appreciated it," Chase said dryly. "Much as I'm sure you appreciated my absence."

"It did mean far less trouble. You instigated far more of those fights than I did."

"Oh really?" Suddenly that narrowed gaze was fixed on Guan, those pupils strangely thin despite the dim light of the room. Chase's expression was impassive, but his voice was accusatory. Strange, thought Guan; Chase normally never argued about whether or not he was responsible for a battle he caused. Half the time he took credit even if he hadn't been there.

"You disagree?" Guan stood still where he was, wishing he hadn't left his spear by the door. No doubt he could make a move for it, but Chase would be on him in an instant.

"I recall your self-righteous indignity over my actions causing at least half of them, whether they were warranted or not." At this Guan almost laughed.

"Warranted? When I stood in your way, there was never a time it _wasn't_ so."

"I beg to differ." Chase's voice was edged with a hiss. "You claim justification for your actions, but half the time it was no more than a desperate attempt at vanquishing evil because you were a force of good." He grinned, or at least one corner of his mouth turned up. His glare was as icy as ever. "Or was it out of a not-so-noble need for revenge?"

Guan almost questioned that. He caught the words between his teeth before they escaped - _What would I need revenge for?_ - because the answer was obvious enough when Chase was involved.

Revenge for the temple. For the murdered monks that had been teachers, friends, and guides. For the innocent lives taken that night, when the village burned down alongside the temple. For a friendship brutally destroyed by one fateful choice.

"Are you saying I would be _wrong_ to want to take revenge for what you did?"

"And still uphold yourself as a force of righteousness? Absolutely." The malice in the words was like acid, etching every syllable. "The only justification you used was self-centered desire. That's hardly justification at all."

It was so bizarre, so ridiculous, the whole affair so unexpectedly sudden - and infuriating beyond any other insult Chase had ever leveled at him. In the past it had been a point of contention, something used to trip him up midway through a fight, but never had it been used against him like this. Guan hadn't been this angry in centuries, and the brunt of it surprised him. It was probably for the best that he didn't have his spear on hand. For a moment he couldn't speak.

"Hardly justification - " Was Chase just trying to rile him? But there was no maliciousness there; he was serious. "You betrayed us! The entire temple, the people who knew and cherished you - the entirety of the Xiaolin, and for what? Youth and power? Immortality? And you dare to call _me_ self-centered?"

One hand crashed into the table, leaving a crack running almost halfway down the length of it. More than a thousand years of hurt and fury were finally finding a way out.

"You turned your back on everything you swore to uphold and attacked your closest friends! You willingly gave in to corruption. You believed lies about me and let those sway you despite our friendship. You were the only true friend I had, Chase, and in the end you trusted the lies of a demon over me! How can you say I have no justification? What gives you the right?"

"Because you did _exactly the same thing!_"

Silence.

It was like a pit had opened up under him. Guan's anger froze, stunned by the accusation that came out of nowhere, as powerful as a blow to the stomach.

"What?" He stared at Chase, who he had a hard time believing would make a rebuttal that petty for its own sake. "When did I ever betray you?"

"Another time. Another place." The words were hard and sharp. Chase hadn't moved from where he stood, had hardly even twitched throughout Guan's tirade. Now he was as still as ever, but his skin was deathly pale from what could only be fury. "Where things were otherwise. Where I made a _different_ choice - the one you're so adamant I should have made." He grit his teeth for a second as he fought with his own words. "Don't even try to tell me you can't remember it."

_Another time. Another place._ Guan stared, and the realization, which had been with him for some time now, quietly bloomed in his head.

He'd heard about Omi's ill-thought-out plan to earn the title of Shoku Warrior for himself after it had happened. He remembered the strange warp in the ether after (or so Master Fung told him) two worlds collided, two of the infinite number of timelines rebounding back on each other to restore the original to its proper place. For weeks everything had been thrown into chaos.

But the echoes remained. They had grown fainter, as time passed, but every so often something would shift out of place. A wasteland where grass had been. His mountain temple engulfed in eternal flames. The recollection of presences pressing in on his mind, waiting to obey his orders. Fung had said the children shared occasional memories of the other world, but never in great detail, more often melancholic than not. It was normal. It would pass.

In nightmares, it was harder to deal with.

"Yes," hissed Chase, "_you_ turned on _me_. I was weak, and then I persevered, while _you_ were swayed by those very same lies - by the fear that your closest friend wanted to _usurp_ you." The words had a strange echo to them in Guan's head, like two people were speaking them at once. "Even after you saw me as I was and recognized the guilt I bore for even _considering_ turning against you."

There was an obvious struggle going on to maintain a human appearance. Chase's shoulders were hunched, his pupils barely visible, but there was no tearing of cloth or skin as claws and spikes tried to break free.

"I … wasn't as strong," Guan said, keeping his voice as level as he could as the flashes of someone else's memory burst in his brain like fireworks.

"Only in one sense of the word." No disdain, no dismissal. Just anger. "You were a greater monster than I've ever been. You think your hatred is justified, Guan, but remember that given the same choice, you made the same decision I did."

The wound of the past - of two pasts - was evidently as raw for Chase as it was for Guan. Had he just been waiting for an opportunity to say all this? Or had the frustration of training the monks, of waiting for the world to end, of dealing with lives he both had and hadn't lived finally reached a point where even the most minor slight would drive him to snap? It had been such a quick descent from idle chatter into this, and it left Guan reeling.

"You're no better than I am," Chase snarled.

Guan shook his head to try and clear his thoughts. It was like dredging through quicksand: being dragged down by what-ifs that were simple truths somewhere else. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Whatever his next words were, they had to be chosen carefully.

If they were wrong, the ensuing fight might never end.

"In another place, perhaps," he said eventually, his voice stronger than it had been, but he didn't look at Chase. "Here … who knows? You destroyed any chance for us to find out when you made your choice."

Chase's expression faltered for a moment, as if he was surprised by what he heard - as if he had expected an apology, or another argument, or for Guan to give up and leave. Anything other than what almost sounded like a dismissal. But Guan knew that even if in another time and another place he had been the one to fall to the forces of darkness, that was not _this_ time and _this_ place. It was a painful accusation, and it had drained the anger right out of him, but he had to remain firm for now. There was too much at stake to allow old grudges to take a stronger hold on him than they already had.

But the falter only lasted a moment, and then Chase was glaring at him again.

"Of course I did," he said, his voice more bitter than truly angry anymore.

.-.-

When the monks returned a little more than an hour later, Guan took the recovered Wu from them with a brief smile and the usual promise that he'd be back within a week to check on them again, then left on Dojo without another word. Chase never showed himself; all that was waiting for them in the inner chambers was a pack of tigers that reluctantly refrained from trying to eat them long enough to get in a decent defensive training session.

The rest of the day was remarkably quiet, but they couldn't shake the feeling that they were standing on a battlefield long after the war was over.


	9. Chapter 9

About two weeks later, Chase pushed his chair away from the table where they were having breakfast and said, "I think it's time you had an opportunity to test your skills in the real world."

The monks stopped eating and glanced at each other in surprise. It had been some time since they'd started their training here, and so far the only times they'd been allowed to leave the lair was for yet more training and the one instance of retrieving a Shen Gong Wu. The opportunity to get out, even if it was only for a little while, was tempting, but it was unexpected enough to make them suspicious.

"Yeah?" Raimundo said. "And what's the catch?"

"You might find out you're just as useless as you were when you first got here," Chase replied, but his tone was more amused than malicious. "Other than that, no catch. Constantly fighting me will only hinder you in the long run, regardless of how many different styles I use against you."

"It's not another Shen Gong Wu, is it?"

"No." Chase clasped his hands on the table. "It seems that Wuya, despite my warnings, has decided to align herself with Hannibal. I assume she thinks this will give her a powerful position should he take over the world. She fails to realize there will be no positions left for her to have."

"Why bother warnin' her?" Clay's words were careful, ready to spring a trap if the response he got hinted at some evil alliance. "Ain't you two on bad terms?"

"Generally, yes, but compared to all the _other_ villains involved in Dashi's long-standing mess, she's decent company." Chase paused. "Most of the time."

"Wow," said Kimiko, leaning her head on her hand with half a smirk. "Coming from you, that almost sounds romantic."

"For a given terrible definition of the word. She certainly would like to think so." Chase's smile was brief and thin. "We'll set out as soon as you're done here."

They finished eating in record time and followed Chase to the central training room, where he drew a strange, circular sigil on the ground in chalk. They watched, nonplussed, until he straightened up.

"Teleportation will get us there fastest," he explained, "but while teleporting myself is a matter of no consequence, four additional people require a bit more power. Stand in the center. Don't scuff the lines, and don't let any part of yourself outside of them, either, or it will be left behind."

"Be a real shame if you got any more bloodstains on these floors, huh?"

Chase raised an eyebrow at Clay derisively.

The teleportation itself was strange and unsettling - the entire world seemed to shift out of place around them, blurring through color and motion in a few fractions of a second - but their feet landed on familiar ground and their noses picked up familiar smells as soon as everything steadied again, and any discomfort was wiped away in an instant.

They were back at the Xiaolin temple, under a sunny sky.

The grounds were unkempt and there was an eerie silence in the air, but they hadn't expected to see any of it again until the world had been saved who-only-knew how many more months down the line. For Omi, seeing everything again brought back a rush of homesickness he'd banished in their first few days of training. He swallowed hard and straightened his back and looked around to see if anything had been moved out of place.

"Here?" asked Raimundo, giving the grounds the same once-over as Omi was. "Why would Wuya be at the temple?"

"I'm hoping we'll find out." Chase moved past them, heading for the temple buildings. "Since I doubt Hannibal would send her to steal Shen Gong Wu, there must be something else of value around here."

But it was at the temple vault that they found her, after a few minutes of searching. She was striding out the open archway, scowling, her arms thankfully stiff at her sides rather than wrapped around as much stolen Wu as she could carry. It took her a few seconds to see them, but when she did, she stopped dead.

"And now this!" she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. "Could my day get _any_ worse?"

"Careful what you say. Never know when Jack might show up," Rai said with a smirk. Wuya grimaced.

"Knowing him, he would," she grumbled. She put her hands on her hips and glared at all of them. "And here I thought you were actually off training, but no. Here you are, ready to inconvenience me yet again." She glanced past them at Chase, who was leaning against one of the columns along the edge of the temple walkway. "This seems awfully petty, even for you, Chase."

"I did warn you," he said dryly. "Aligning with Hannibal means aligning against me, and I will show no mercy to those who do so."

"So you're siccing the monks on me?" The corner of her mouth turned up slightly. "Should I be scared?"

"They could use a little exercise. Trouncing an old witch should do the trick quite nicely."

"An old - !"

Wuya's almost-grin dropped. Her hands clenched into fists, and a familiar flickering green light danced at the edges of her skin. Everyone jumped into a fighting stance - except Chase, who only rested more weight against the column and watched.

The ground rumbled, buckled - and out of it came six stone giants, massive and impenetrable with eyes lit by Heylin fire. They were as big as ever, reaching the roofs of the temple buildings when they pulled their feet out of the earth. Wuya wasn't playing any games this time around.

She pointed a claw-nailed finger at the monks and opened her mouth to order the attack, but her words never made it to the air. There was a flash of movement and she had to duck suddenly to avoid one of the giants' heads flying straight at her. It crashed into the ground, sliding to a stop scant inches from the vault wall.

The body it had been previously attached to reached up to pat its empty neck in confusion before crumbling into pebbles and dust at Raimundo's feet.

"Only a few? C'mon, Wuya, you can do better than _that_." He cracked his knuckles and grinned, like this was just another scrap over who got first shot at the Wu for training.

Wuya snarled with rage and clenched her glowing hands into fists.

The fight broke out without any fanfare; Raimundo, Omi, and Clay were on the stone giants immediately, but Kimiko nimbly leapt around them and made straight for Wuya instead. Wind and water and earth could wear down stone just fine, but fire only made it more dangerous. Nobody wanted to deal with rocks so hot they were melting. She rolled under a blast of green fire and returned it with one of her own, fast and bright like the heart of a star.

It was clear that Wuya wasn't prepared for this level of aggression from them. Already the giants, naturally slow because of their size and weight, were falling under a series of blows from every angle, and she couldn't call up more _and_ keep herself from being burnt to a crisp. She ducked and dodged and weaved around the chaos, but it was the work of a minute for the last of the six giants to wash away into the unkempt rock gardens at the edges of the temple walls.

Omi kicked the last stone into the newfound decor and gave Wuya a triumphant grin.

To her credit, she only stared for a few seconds before scowling at them again, her composure only shaken. The usual mocking light in her eyes was harder now.

"So you have learned. Looks like Chase is a better teacher than any of us ever thought."

"Surprising, isn't it?" agreed Kimiko. Both of her hands were still casting heat waves just above her skin, ready to fling fire at a moment's notice. She glanced back and saw Chase looking decidedly unimpressed with the insults, but he said nothing. Wuya, after all, was still there.

"And there's more where that came from. You gonna make a break for it now, or do we have to keep kicking your butt until you realize there's no way you can win?"

"I've won plenty of times before. One minor setback here doesn't mean you can start celebrating." She leaped into the air, but as Kimiko's fists lit up she landed on a roof rather than attacking. Her whole body glowed with Heylin light now, eyes as fierce as the first time she'd been set free from her spiritual form. "You want a challenge? Here. Have one!"

The shockwave as the ethereal fire hit the ground almost knocked them off their feet. Kimiko just barely managed to avoid getting flung through a far wall. For a moment everything was still; then the ground exploded outward, unleashing something monstrous.

There were a few regular rock giants, slightly smaller than the first, but they were nothing compared to what dragged itself out from underground after them. Longer than it was tall, its stones jagged and hooked together rather than the smoother, rounded construction of its more humanoid cousins, it looked like a scorpion with arms and legs. When it opened its stony mandibles, a mouth spat green fire and dripped molten stone. It screamed on the edge of hearing and made them all wince.

Omi stared, both in horror and because there was something _familiar_ about it. Like she had reached into a nightmare he'd had once and pulled out the monster that had been chasing him.

From her perch, Wuya smiled with an edge of sharp teeth and gave them a coy wave.

"Enjoy!"

The giants and their monster charged. The monks didn't see her vanish over the temple walls.

Disposing of the giants would have been easy enough if it weren't for the scorpion-thing spewing flames at the giants' backs, which did no damage to them but made trying to dodge flying fists and rolling maneuvers significantly more difficult for the monks. Worse was the fact that every missed flame caught some part of the temple on fire. The magic in it meant that it scorched stone and killed grass, leaving behind swathes that were corrupted rather than burned.

Raimundo backflipped onto an adjacent roof and hissed as his tunic smoked. Some of that fire had caught him on the arm, going right through the cloth to leave the skin underneath stinging. It was painful, but probably not serious, so he focused on the fight looming below instead.

"Guys! Up here!"

The rest of them joined him in a blink. The giants didn't see where they'd gone, but it wouldn't take long before they tried looking up rather than left and right.

"This is gonna be fun." Kimiko glanced over at him. "You okay?"

"Just a scratch. I'll be fine." The scorpion unleashed another shriek, making even the giants tremble. "How're we gonna get out of this one?"

"With great difficulty." Omi crouched by the edge of the roof and clenched his fists in frustration. "I cannot put out those flames with water. They simply refuse to extinguish!"

"Really? Dang. Maybe you can cut off that thing's fire, Kim?" asked Clay. His hat was somewhere on the ground; he winced every time a giant foot came perilously close to stepping on it.

"I don't know. It's not regular fire, but I can try." Evil fire, that was all it was, but would that put it out of her purview?

"And I don't want to risk making it worse by blowing it around," said Rai. He watched the things below move around, knowing that at any second they would be spotted and wanting to take advantage of the element of surprise so long as they had it. "Okay. Let's try this. Omi, you and me take the dudes to the cleaners. Keep them away from the big ugly. Clay, you try to get that thing trapped. Dig a hole, trip it up, whatever you think will work best. Kimiko, stop the flames. If you can't, then keep them away from the rest of us. Me and Omi'll go for the kill once you two have it stuck. All right?"

They nodded. At that moment, one of the giants looked up and pointed. Every head swiveled around to fix on them.

As one, the monks leaped.

For Omi and Raimundo, the task was straightforward and simple. Clay and Kimiko, not so much. They landed on either side of it, so it kept swinging its massive tail around to try and keep them both in sight at the same time. This meant they had to dodge, which put a crimp in their ability to actually fight. By unspoken agreement Kimiko ran in front to bait it, trying to keep its attention, but it knew Clay was somewhere nearby and kept turning to try and figure out where he'd gone. Finally, Kimiko hit it just under the eye with a narrow bullet of fire, leaving a scorched mark but no real damage.

That got its attention. The mandibles crashed at her once, threateningly, and it started to lumber toward her.

Clay opened a pit under its feet.

At first it wobbled and collapsed down, half-kneeling, letting out another keening noise. But with its weirdly human arms it pushed itself free, dribbling on the grass as it opened its mandibles to start spitting fire again. He tried another pit, this one deeper, but this just meant the fire missed Kimiko by a matter of feet when the whole body slung to the side. It was single-minded and dumb, but that single-minded stupidity was dangerous in its own right - and fixed on Kimiko.

She was managing to redirect the fire as best she could, but it wasn't purely fire; the Heylin touch in it was fighting her. And Clay wasn't about to try and open an even deeper pit, because he might drag a building down with it, or collapse a hidden basement somewhere. It was bad enough doing as much damage as he was to the temple grounds. The thing was getting past everything he tried - it was _smart_, which very few of Wuya's creations ever were. He wondered if it was really her idea.

It wouldn't stay down, and when he tried to trip it instead it nearly burned Omi to a crisp. Clay grit his teeth. This wasn't working. The tail was still swinging, nobody could get close enough to stop it, and he was doing _nothing to stop it_ …

Frustration and anger boiled in his gut. Chase's words from all their past training sessions filtered into his head, mocking and hateful. Even the amused little shot before they left turned into something vitriolic as he tried, and failed, to stop the monster that was lumbering after his friends. He was losing, failing, screwing up, and this thing was even made out of his own element and he couldn't -

It _was_ made out of his own element.

The mists parted. There was one clear shot here, something that might kill him but might also work. Lightning fast he realized what he'd need to do. He ripped a handful of earth up to knock into the monster's jaw and waved at Kimiko.

"Kim! Turn it this way! Turn it to me!"

She stared at him in disbelief, but he gave her as steady a look as he could manage considering how this would turn out if he was wrong. Another massive claw swiped down at her, making her dodge, and he watched her leap and run around its side toward him. It turned slowly, eyes glowing terribly. Kimiko landed next to him and fell into a stance.

"I hope you know what you're doing," she said. Sweat had left her hair a limp mess around her shoulders, but she didn't look hurt. Clay nodded.

"I sure do too."

It had turned to face them completely. Green ooze burned the ground between them as it stepped forward. Fire licked the edges of its mouth, danced up toward its eyes. It could tell when prey had given up and was ready to be eaten.

Clay steadied himself, set his legs apart, and clapped his hands together in front of him. Earth was his element, and stone was part of the earth. Wuya could twist it to her will with as much magic as she had, but she couldn't twist the core.

He took a deep breath and _reached_.

The monster paused, watching them both. It tilted its head to the side. Kimiko balled her hands into fists and tried not to grab Clay by the back of his shirt to drag him away before it crushed them both. It trilled something high and nasty before bringing up its claws. The broken edges of stone cast cruel shadows on them both.

There was silence. Raimundo looked over and almost started running when he saw the sight: the raised claws, hanging theatrically as if to give Clay and Kimiko one last chance to regret their lives before coming down hard …

Except they didn't come down.

As close as she was, Kimiko could see the sudden trembling that ran through the monster. The mandibles worked frantically. A fresh surge of molten fire leaked from its jaws but didn't spray outward at them. Stone arms and legs were racked with tremors, trying to move by inches but barely managing anything at all. She looked at Clay and saw him stock-still, sweating more than if he was locked in a furnace.

He was holding it back. All on his own, he was keeping it from moving one more step.

"Omi! Rai!" She whirled to face them both, where they were finishing up the last crumbling giant. "Over here! Get it now! _Hurry!_" The thing let out a thin, high shriek, a mental scream that made her want to clamp her hands over her ears. It was trying to break out of his control and she didn't know how long that would take.

Both of them came at a run, Omi bounding up and over to land a hard heel in the center of its body. It jerked down, still shrieking, still unable to fight back, but Clay twitched as it fell and the end of its tail lashed wildly. Raimundo shouted something to Omi, and the two of them split up again, then charged it from opposite sides. Kimiko set her arms aflame with everything she had and reeled back.

As hard as they could, the three of them slammed into the monstrous head, heels and fists powered by all the strength they had to muster.

The mental shriek cut off abruptly. The shockwave of their hit rippled through the entire stony body. Then, almost in slow motion, cracks spread out to cover the entirety of the head, and it crumbled to pebbles and dust in a pile of swiftly-cooling molten stone. After a few seconds, the rest of the body followed suit.

It was destroyed. They'd won.

Clay sagged, and Kimiko caught him. He rested a grateful arm over her shoulder.

"Dang," said Rai, sitting down heavily and rubbing his ankle. "That _hurt_."

"Evidently Wuya makes her monsters only out of the most difficult stone," Omi said, by way of agreement.

"Hard," Raimundo corrected absentmindedly, but Omi just shrugged.

A shadow fell across them. They glanced up at Chase, who gave them an inscrutable look before moving to sift through the remnants of the monster. In silence he nudged aside larger stones and broken shards, but if he was looking for something, he apparently didn't find it. After a minute he turned back to them and gestured for them to stand.

With varying shades of grumble, they complied.

"Raimundo." Rai stood up a little straighter and matched Chase's look with a raised eyebrow. "You did well to evaluate the situation properly and assign roles as needed. Striking before Wuya was prepared was also a good tactic. Never give your enemies an opportunity they don't deserve."

"Seemed like as good a time as any." Rai grinned and tried not to lean on his bad ankle. Chase turned to face Omi.

"Omi. You didn't argue with the orders given and fought without holding back or showing off. Knowing when to keep your pride in check is a difficult lesson to learn for those of us entrenched in it, and I'm glad to see you handling it well."

There might have been something snide in there, but it the barb was slight and dull and aimed at them both. Omi nodded solemnly, not quite able to hold back his own smile.

"Kimiko." Chase had moved on. "You recognized when your powers would hinder rather than help and went straight for the source instead, which kept the battle from dragging on and minimized the damage done. Your level of control and awareness bodes well for your future battles."

"Fire with fire, like you said." But her grin only lasted a few moments as Chase finally turned to face Clay, who had since moved to stand on his own and was wearing a hard grimace.

"Clay."

Chase folded his arms across his chest. He let the silence build a few moments before speaking.

"To take control of a Heylin elemental using the sheer strength of your own elemental prowess is an extremely difficult undertaking, as well as extremely dangerous and foolish. Even holding it still as you did has killed other men in an instant." He met Clay's glower with a steady gaze. "I am impressed."

"Yeah, well, if you'd been out there for a minute, I - "

And then Clay's brain caught up with his ears and realized what he'd just heard was a compliment, and he stopped talking completely.

"Heylin magic corrupts everything it touches, as we've seen here today, so to be able to reach past that to what little was left unmarred is not something to be dismissed lightly." Chase leaned in a little, momentarily grimacing. "And as I see no corruption in you, it seems you were fully successful in wresting control from it, at least temporarily. To do such a thing requires a complex understanding of all sides of an element, which is something few people have ever managed. If you can master that ability, you will become a terrible threat to the Heylin - likely moreso than anyone has been since Dashi's heyday."

Clay tried to think of what to say. A thank-you was contrite and he didn't feel grateful enough to get the words out, but to hear Chase admit he had more than potential, had _promise_ - that he could be dangerous enough to strike fear into the hearts of evil - was throwing him for a loop.

" … then that's what I'm gonna do," he finally said, words more certain than he felt, but Chase nodded and turned away without another comment.

The tension in the air around all of them vanished. Postures drooped and injuries started to make themselves known. Chase directed them to clean up the messes left behind as best they could before they headed back.

"Except you," he added, pointing at Raimundo. "Show me your arm."

Reluctantly, Rai did so. Chase peeled back the sleeve to reveal a vicious burn, the one left by the trailing scorch of Heylin fire from the monster. His mouth twisted slightly and he pressed at the black mark, making Raimundo hiss against the pain.

"Hey, easy there."

"It's shallow." Chase ignored the protest and scraped one gloved nail against the wound. "But it could use attention nonetheless."

"Think it's gonna corrupt me like everything else?"

"It might. It would have if it had gotten more of you, though if we'd cut off your arm you might have been saved." The momentary flash of teeth Rai saw probably meant that was a joke, he figured. "I'll treat it when we return."

The cleanup was swift (there wasn't much they could do about the ruined pathways and grass, but at least the rock gardens would never need refilling again) and Chase took them back to his lair, where he dismissed all but Raimundo for the foreseeable future. The two of them retreated to a smaller room off the main training chamber, where small pots bubbled over fires and there were cabinets filled with ancient-looking medical supplies.

Rai sat down and looked around as Chase pulled out a roll of bandages and a handful of bottles from one cabinet and a few acupuncture needles from another. He gave those a wary look when Chase knelt across from him.

"Is that really necessary?"

"It'll hurt less than you think." Chase set down the supplies. "Take your arm out of the sleeve."

The air was cool despite the little fires going in the corners, making his sweat chill against his skin now that it was bared. Raimundo grit his teeth and extended his arm when Chase held out a hand. Again there was prodding at the injury, which left him wanting to swear, but he held back and just watched in silence instead. He tried to think about the fight and what came before it - finding Wuya making her way out of the temple vault, even empty-handed as she was. Why was she there? How did Chase know about it?

He watched, grimly, as Chase carefully picked up a needle and carefully pressed it into place on the edge of the wound. It stung, but in comparison to the constant pain from the burn, he barely noticed it.

"Didn't figure you as much of an acupuncture person."

"I've known it to help on more than one occasion." Chase put another into place and reached for a third. "This will do less to alleviate the pain than to ensure I can anchor any lingering corruption and cut it free."

Raimundo raised an eyebrow, even though he knew Chase wasn't going to look up to see it.

"Not gonna leave it in there for me to do battle with later on?" Chase made a dismissive noise, almost a snort.

"You've had your battles with darkness." The third needle went in. "I doubt something like this would be your downfall. It would be far more likely to trip you up partway through an upcoming battle, which is something none of us needs."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Rai never stopped watching what Chase was doing; even if he didn't think there was any real danger, he wasn't about to take his chances and look away. Besides, it couldn't hurt to see what was happening. Magic in general was still kind of a closed book to him, and this didn't _seem_ like it was Heylin, so how bad could it be?

There were six needles in place before Chase did anything significant, and even then, Rai didn't really understand it. All he knew was that green and purple lines flickered between the points of metal briefly, and then his arm suddenly felt like it was on fire. He choked and would have lashed out with his injured arm if Chase hadn't been gripping his wrist tight enough to bruise, so he just wrenched down into his shoulder, refusing to make a sound.

Eventually the pain ebbed down into something bearable. When he looked up, Chase was pulling the needles free, setting them in a tiny bowl. There was no blood, he noticed, and also the wound didn't look as bad any more. Instead of a blackened, threatening mess, it just looked ugly.

"Geeze. Warn a guy, will you?"

"I did." Chase let go of his wrist. "You'll be fine, and the scar will be something I'm sure you can show off in the future."

"My first real battle scar, huh?" Raimundo turned his arm to the side to get a better look at where it curled at his elbow. "Seems kind of pathetic I got it fighting one of Wuya's monsters."

"She's capable enough, when she wants to be, but I understand the sentiment completely." Chase uncorked one of the bottles he'd brought and carefully poured a measure on the burn. It stung more than the needles did, and Rai hissed through his teeth. "Rub that into the wound."

"Not enough that she got what she wanted today." He grimaced and did as he was told. "Whatever that was. Any ideas?"

"No. I can't imagine she was actually trying to steal the Wu, whether on her own initiative or Hannibal's." Chase set the bottle back on the table and picked up another. "She is shallow, vain, petty, and selfish, among other things, but not even she would be stupid enough to ignore the upcoming danger in favor of trinkets."

"So there must have been some other reason." Rai moved his hand to let Chase put a few drops of something else on his arm, which didn't hurt as much as the first. "I didn't think there was anything in the vault except Wu, but … I've only been there for a couple years." He paused. "Weren't you there a long time ago?"

"It was an entirely different temple back then," Chase said wryly, reaching for a third bottle. "One that I burned to the ground after I turned away from the Xiaolin. If they hid something in the depths of the new one, I never noticed."

"So it's possible." The third liquid felt cool on his arm, making Rai sigh in relief. "Think Guan would know?"

Chase tensed and hesitated, gloved fingers twitching as they reached for the coil of bandages nearby.

"He might." The fact that it was a visible hesitation made Rai wonder. The two of them had been icily cordial at each other in their last few meetings, so much so that it was almost unreal. "Ask him the next time he visits."

It was a little strange, having one of his worst enemies bandage him up, but Raimundo didn't say anything about it. It was more convenient than doing it himself, and the silence between them as Chase worked was at least calm, if not really companionable or pleasant in any way. It reminded him of … something. Something he couldn't quite place. Something similar, like this had happened before, somewhere else.

He frowned. Where else would this have happened? It wasn't like this was a regular thing. Chase usually made them take care of their own wounds.

But the sight of gloved fingers carefully folding over the end of stark white bandages so they didn't come loose struck a strange chord with him. Something flickered, and for a second he was sitting in a dim room somewhere, sunlight trying to filter through dusty windows, watching as someone else wrapped old, torn linens around a gash in his forearm. Someone with careful, steady, ungloved hands.

It lasted for less than a moment. Rai blinked and it was gone, and Chase was pulling away, standing up to put everything back in its place. Uneasily he pulled his tunic back on and got to his feet. He headed for the door, but paused before he stepped out.

"Thanks," he said, without glancing back.

"Not necessary," was the response. It wasn't sharp or dismissive, really. More an automatic response.

Raimundo drummed his fingers on the edge of the doorway before making his way out and toward the hall back to his room.

No point in dwelling on it. He had enough to think about already.

.-.-

_Almost_.

Things were falling into place.

The world was shifting in little ways. Power was moving, redirecting itself to the appointed place. The paths of spirits were being carefully but firmly nudged in the right direction. Little things were being put where they belonged - sigils in stones, talismans in trees.

And above all, things were being thrown in the _wrong_ places, too, and that was why this was taking so long. All of this was so far from subtle it could be seen from the edge of the universe. Hannibal was under no impression that he was getting away without being noticed, so he had to throw red herrings left and right to keep the Xiaolin off his trail. At the same time, he needed to make sure he still had enough power to go through with the ritual, so there couldn't be too many false leads, or at least too many in out-of-the-way places.

It was difficult. It was frustrating. It was almost enough to make him tear out his metaphorical hair. But it was _working_, and that was what mattered above everything else in the world.

Alone in his underground lair, Hannibal hopped off a table and made his way to a pile of papers inscribed with ancient mantras of evil. They were worthless, hardly even tainting the paper they were written on, but they looked bad and the Heylin had picked up a reputation of style over substance in his absence.

There was nothing wrong with being flashy every so often, especially when you'd won, but these days it was all flash and no bang. Presumptuous and arrogant. Which, again, was fine, until those early celebrations landed you face-first in the mud at your enemies' feet, or stuck in a timeless hell of a prison for 1,500 years.

So he would use the expectations of his enemies to lead them on the wrong paths. Already the focus was back on the Xiaolin Temple. The sudden appearance of hundreds of curse talismans over the so-called hallowed ground of Dashi's hometown a few miles away would solidify everyone's suspicions, leaving him free to keep burning out the _real_ seals just under the surface of the earth.

It was a necessary waste of time. But it would be worth it in the end. He had to keep reminding himself of that, before he gave up and went the way of all the other Heylin around here and just let everything blow up in his face.

Little shadowy servants skittered in and out of the room, grabbing talismans and vanishing into the darkness. They were just highly intelligent rats, but he'd done his best for illusions so now anyone who saw them would scream _demons, demons coming up from the cellar!_ And everyone would wonder what new power he'd summoned up from the abyss and start looking for answers in all the wrong scrolls and leave him to his plans, thinking he was leaving giant footsteps in his wake.

Nevertheless, he sighed wearily. It was draining, manipulating so many things at once, using so much power he didn't really have. And all for an end result that might not even acknowledge him. Or at least his efforts - it was _going_ to acknowledge him, so long as he had the shards. Which was all he really had at this point. That, and a grim determination to see this through to the bitter end.

Well. Bitter for everyone else.

Hannibal turned away from the talismans and looked at the nearly-invisible slot in the wall where the hidden door was. The damn things were drawing attention from other realms now that they weren't buried any more. They were nearly impossible for living people to find, he'd made sure of that, but they were blazing like a beacon on every other level. Spirits clustered around the sealed room and made a nuisance of themselves. Of course, a nuisance was about all they could manage, but it was annoying either way.

Especially _certain_ spirits.

He could feel a deep, distant pressure as he moved through the underground caves, trying to grab not at the barriers protecting the shards but at _him_. It was coming from a very long distance away but making steady, though sometimes questionable, progress. Lately he'd been hearing distant hissing whispers. That was a bad sign. It meant he was weakening. It meant that bastard was getting closer. That was the only real danger he faced now - one with nothing but time to keep it at bay.

But everything was so close to coming together that he didn't want to risk another delay just to ensure one little problem didn't get bigger. It could lead to new problems, or old ones getting a new foothold. He'd be done before this turned into an issue.

The world would be his well before those whispers were audible.

So long as he didn't start slacking off.

Hannibal moved through corridors and into caves. He collected more candles and took them to the hidden rooms where the artifacts of _real_ power slowly ebbed and waned, kept safe thanks to their fake counterparts shining with brittle brightness on the surface. He tested sigils, redrew what had burned away through sheer power and felt satisfied with what was holding out. He looked over ancient maps of old power nexuses, now covered with his own drawings and decisions as he rearranged them under a quiet forest clearing. Four points here, six there … he took a moment's break to feed Ying-Ying a handful of seeds and reread messages from distant, shadowy servants and acquaintances. Observations from everywhere that might pose a problem. For instance, the land of Nowhere.

Chase and the monks weren't a threat. The Xiaolin in general never really had been, but this attempt was laughable. Four pitiful wannabe Dragons trying to learn how to master skills that had taken Dashi his entire life to do? What had the world come to? It was almost insulting, but Hannibal was sensible enough to realize that _not_ having a bonafide hero coming after him was a good thing. The hit to his pride wasn't worth being annoyed over.

Not even Chase alone, at the ultimate peak of his power, would have been good enough to stop him. Nor Guan. Arrogance made him think _nor Dashi_, which was easy enough when said monk was long since dead. They would try, the lot of them, and in the end Hannibal would succeed and fling them into their own private little hells for all the trouble they'd put him to.

_Especially_ Chase. Fifteen hundred years in a world with no time …

He owed the bastard.

Something distant and ghostlike hissed from a long ways away. Hannibal's almost-smirk dropped into a grimace.

"Shut up," he snapped. "Dead men oughta _stay_ dead."

.-.-

Guan hadn't known anything about something hidden in, or under, the temple. As someone who'd helped to supervise its construction, he would have found out if there had been additional work to keep something safe. Though he admitted it was possible Dashi could have kept something like that from him, it seemed highly unlikely.

He did, however, say that artifacts of great power were often stored in temples to keep them out of evil's reach. It seemed like an obvious place to put them, but at the same time, anyone attempting to actually get at them would have to fight their way through armies of highly-trained, extremely disciplined warriors, often with no sense of humor or mercy.

For a while they'd discussed whether or not they should go back to the temple and search it fully for anything that Hannibal might have wanted. Guan said it was too dangerous, and in any case they needed to continue their training here. He would ask Master Fung about it, and tell them what he found out next time.

But that didn't stop them from being curious about what might be hidden, and what _was_ being held in other temples. Chase wouldn't give them any real answers, instead waving them off with an insistence that they had training to do, but it occupied their mealtimes and free hours enough that he finally gave up and, with some reluctance, let them into his library to look up whatever information they wanted on their own.

It was the biggest library any of them had ever seen.

Buried under the base of his citadel, it seemed to go on forever. There were scrolls filling long, winding honeycombs made of stone and wood. Bound books filled what seemed like endless shelves that stretched up to the ceiling. With a snap of his fingers Chase lit the place up, fires springing to life in carefully-contained torches in the walls. It was still dim, but there was enough light to see by, and in the center of the room was a small dais with cushions and better lighting.

"I'll take your stunned silence as a compliment," Chase said after a few moments.

"It's pretty impressive," Raimundo said, looking up one of the bookcases. "You've been collecting these since forever?"

"Since I realized it was more than worth the trouble to find and keep them. Unfortunately, this was not an early realization." He brushed past them, heading for the dais. "The histories are to the right. Start with the bound copies, since you may actually be able to read those. And be careful of the scrolls; some of them are older than I am."

They fanned out. It took a while to find the right books, some of which were twenty feet above their heads and required Omi's careful climbing to get to. Even then, most turned out to be old enough that the pages were yellowing and written in ancient dialects, rendering them difficult, if not outright impossible, to read. Even Omi couldn't decipher some of them, and he'd been taught to read on these sorts of things.

But even with the difficulty of the search and translation, it was … _fun_. It wasn't endless training, wasn't backbreaking or painful (except for the occasional book avalanche), wasn't lorded over by an arrogant warlord. They were left to themselves to find the information they wanted. The hours passed in a blink.

After a while, Omi, his head too full of ancient writings to focus any more, left the collection they'd amassed and wandered over to the dais, where Chase was lazily sprawled with a few books open on his lap and an unrolled scroll in his hands. He didn't seem to notice Omi's approach, so the monk took the opportunity to look at what he was studying. There was no hope of translating the words, but the scroll had pictures on it. It looked like a war manual. He grimaced.

"I do not see why you would study the Eight Gates formation when our battles are most certainly not with an enemy army."

Chase looked over at him sharply, eyebrows raised.

"How do _you_ have any familiarity with _Bagua_ tactics?" he asked, incredulous.

"I have read many of our ancient texts as well!"

"In the temple?" Omi expected a sneer, but it didn't come. "Those old monks gave you access to war texts?"

"Er … " Omi shrunk down a little, glancing back at the others. "I was not … _exactly_ given permission to do so."

Chase's eyebrows raised even further.

"Then why do so, if it was forbidden?"

Omi hesitated. It was a silly thing he didn't want to admit, but he couldn't lie, either. He wrung his hands for a second, then sighed. If Chase mocked him for it, at least he'd expect it.

"For a time I believed it was of the utmost important to know all about war, in case it broke out and we were called to fight. I … thought I should know all the best tactics, for when I lead an army." He lifted his chin defiantly, even if he was still embarrassed.

Chase's eyebrows stayed raised, but surprisingly, he didn't smirk or laugh.

"Not a bad idea, though these kinds of wars - " He flicked the scroll with a finger. " - aren't fought any longer, nor was the arrangement of anything inspired by _Bagua_ truly effective in the long run. Impressive, but far too much work for far too little payoff." Chase leaned back and set down the scroll. "I can't imagine what got the idea of leading armies into your head."

"Old stories of great heroes. Including Dashi," Omi added, wanting to see what effect this had, and he almost laughed to see Chase's expression sour in an instant.

"Dashi never led armies. If you were told a story like that, it was an outright lie." He idly rolled up the scroll. "Advised, yes, maybe. But stood at their head and marched with them to battle?" Chase laughed unpleasantly. "He only _dreamed_ of such things."

Omi glanced at the other books Chase had been reading. They were probably on similar subjects, but why? This wasn't a war between men.

He glanced back at the sound of footsteps. Raimundo, Kimiko, and Clay were all approaching, Kimiko with her smartphone in hand. She'd been using it to keep track of all their findings, saying that writing them all down would take too long.

"Funny joke?" asked Rai, rubbing stiffness out of his shoulders.

"In a way," Chase said dryly. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Not really." Kimiko ran through the list one more time, trying to pick out pieces of information. "There's no mention in anything we found of our temple hiding something, but that might have been deliberately left out. There were a lot of others, though, and some of these things … are they actually _real_?"

"As real as the Shen Gong Wu and all your weapons."

"Dashi made those, though." Clay glanced down at the rolled-up scroll in Chase's hands, at the books still open on his legs. "All we've read's said these were made outta thunder and lightning, or came from the heavens, or just … showed up."

"He also imbued them with their mystical powers. Surely those would fall outside the purview of what's generally considered 'real'." Chase set the scroll aside and closed his books. "You've seen worlds outside time, demons in numerous forms … you know the shards are real enough, or you wouldn't be here at your masters' behests. Don't doubt something simply because you don't understand its origin."

"Sure," said Raimundo, sidestepping any arguments anyone else wanted to make, "but why keep them around, if they might be so dangerous? Why not just throw them somewhere nobody can reach? The bottom of the ocean, or inside a volcano."

"I couldn't tell you the precise reason, but my guess is something along the lines of 'in case of an emergency', or 'because'." Chase smiled thinly. "There's always some inscrutable reason to keep them around, just in case, and it always ends badly."

"And Hannibal might be going after them."

"If he has the shards, I don't know why he'd need to."

"Best lead on him we've got, though."

"I suppose." Chase stared at nothing for a few long moments. "Undoubtedly this line of questioning will echo through other enclaves and temples. When we hear about this again, even if the Xiaolin temple is still a mystery, we may get answers we didn't realize we were seeking."

"I fear that will make this most complicated."

"It's already complicated." He stood up and looked at the mess they'd left behind, and this time he did sneer. "Clean up and we'll continue today's training." He glanced down at Omi, the sneer momentarily fading. "I believe I have a new idea I'd like to try."

Omi gulped, and suddenly wished he hadn't said anything about tactics.


	10. Chapter 10

A few days later saw Kimiko lying flat on the ground, waiting for her muscles to stop being numb and for breathing to not hurt as much. The other three monks lay in various states of near-comatose exhaustion around her. Through her bangs she could see Omi, and even as sore as she was, she glared at him with as much grudge as she could muster.

_Bagua._ Eight gates. Tortoises! Of all the ridiculous ancient tactics Omi could have brought to Chase's attention, it was something that required multitasking concentration and physical defenses against an endless onslaught of … of _everything._ She still didn't understand what it had all been about, except that it had taken four hours and Chase had let his cats-turned-humans assist him in the process. There had been something about a multifaceted defense, about letting your enemies in only to cut them down when they tried to get back out, but she could barely remember anything at this point. Thinking hurt almost as much as breathing did.

By general consensus, they blamed Omi, but not too much. After all, he'd gone through the same rigmarole, and was on the ground as exhausted and boneless as the rest of them.

Chase was idly bandaging up one of his tiger's legs nearby. To their surprise - though less now than it would have been earlier - he didn't laugh at their failures during the training, and when Clay had hurled one of the warriors almost through a wall during one particularly vicious three-pronged strike, he hadn't gotten angry. He'd only called a pause to ensure there wasn't any serious damage, then pulled the man from the exercise to tend to his wounds.

Now that tiger was watching Clay carefully as Chase finished wrapping the bandages and sat back. Kimiko glared at both of them, then rolled her face back against the floor. The cool, smooth stone eased the sting of a few soon-to-be-bruises.

"So, uh … he gonna be okay?" asked Clay, who'd surprised himself with his own strength in the attack and wasn't entirely sure if Chase was going to keep taking this in stride.

"He'll be fine. They're more durable than any of you, and heal more quickly, as well." Chase rolled his shoulders and stood up. "Their purpose here was to help train you, after all. I would have been surprised and disappointed if they'd all walked away uninjured."

"Huh." Raimundo, sprawled almost completely flat at the edge of the ring, tried to prop himself up on his elbow and winced. "Isn't that kinda callous? Here I thought the two of you'd be looking for payback."

"These are some of the finest warriors in all of history. Their strength and capability is unmatched, except by me. If you have the strength to send one of them into solid stone hard enough to crack it, why would I take issue with that?" Chase glanced between Rai and Clay, eyebrows raised. "Taking on that kind of ability is part of the reason you're here, after all."

Kimiko grinned a little. It sank as she looked at the tiger in question, who had a particularly sharp gleam in his eye.

"I think _he_ takes issue with it," said Raimundo, who'd noticed the same thing.

"Oh, I'm certain he does." There was a moment of an empty smile at the corner of Chase's mouth. "You'll get no retribution from me, but keep an eye out for him."

The tiger bared his teeth. Clay glowered right back at him, then rolled on his back to glower at the ceiling instead.

There was a shuffling noise, and Kimiko looked over to where Omi was struggling to sit up.

"So," he started, after finally managing to not fall over backwards, "were we successful in this endeavor?"

"Successful?" Chase mulled over the word for a moment. "Not really, no, but you did a far better job than I predicted you would."

Omi scowled.

"We are not dead, are we? We repelled your minions! They are the ones who suffered true injury, not us!"

"You're not still standing, and getting hurt wasn't the point of the exercise." Now Chase raised an eyebrow at him. "None of you truly comprehend the meaning behind this, and it's not a success until you do. Though I hardly expected you to understand it the first time around."

Omi looked like he wanted to say something else, but Chase waved him off.

"It isn't that important, in any case. The battle you face won't involve an army. Failing in this particular endeavor probably won't make that much of a difference in the long run, but I suggest you take the general idea of it to heart. The best tactics can be interpreted to suit any battle."

"But - "

"You're in no condition for another round." Already Chase's attention had moved on; the tigers were getting up and padding out of the room silently. "Take the opportunity to recover, and we'll see how you're feeling later."

And that was that. No amount of grumbling or questioning was going to get them back on the topic. Chase could cut a conversation short and vanish better than anybody any of them had ever met. He swept out of the room without another word, leaving them to try and stagger to their feet on their own, which they managed after a few failed attempts.

"I _really_ need to stop thinking this can't get any worse," Raimundo muttered, leaning on Clay for a few seconds to try and get his feet to stay under him.

"You should. You're probably jinxing it." Kimiko rubbed at a particularly deep ache in one arm, where bruises were bound to show up in a day or two. "Making Omi point out that kind of thing … jeeze."

Omi sniffed, annoyed, but didn't say anything. They slowly started to make their way down the halls back to their rooms, getting a little more strength back with every step.

"Hey, this was totally not my fault in any way, jinx or not."

"Dunno. Suppose we can blame you anyway. You're the leader, ain't ya?" Clay gave Rai a nudge with his shoulder, almost knocking him over. "You should be keepin' an eye on him. Makin' sure this doesn't happen."

"Oh, sure, so most of the time I'm totally normal but as soon as you can blame me for something, I'm the leader again? No dice, dudes." Rai tried to shove Clay back and failed, ending up leaning on him instead. "This is all on Omi."

Omi tensed a little more, but nobody noticed.

"Makes me wish we didn't have someone here who knows all about that kind of thing. Or two of them, I guess." Kimiko sighed a little theatrically; her face still felt like something had slammed it into a wall, which, in fact, something had. Several times.

"Does anybody even get what that was about? I mean, other than you, Omi." Rai pulled himself up again and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"It was not important. Like he said." Omi's words were a little short.

"So why'd he take that long to beat it into us? I thought at this point he wasn't all mean-and-green ugly scaled sadism machine," Rai lamented. "Why'd you have to go and make that a thing again, dude?"

"I don't know!" It was sharp, loud, almost a yell. "I didn't realize he would turn an observation into training! This is not my fault!"

Everyone froze. Even Omi was startled into stillness by the force of his own words. The empty hall rang with the silence that followed until Rai spoke again, much more subdued.

"Hey - I'm sorry, buddy. I didn't realize I was getting to you."

"Yeah," added Kimiko, her hand pausing halfway as she considered reaching out to rest it on his shoulder. "We're just a little tired because of that. It was Chase's fault, not yours."

Omi didn't move for a second. Then his shoulders sagged as he sighed, shaking his head.

"Do not apologize, my friends. I should be the one to do so. You are right, after all - this was ultimately my doing."

"Nah, it was his fault," Clay tried to object. "He's the one puttin' us through all this."

"That may be true, but I still brought it to his attention." He turned partway, his expression downcast. "I am sorry for what I said just now. I'm not truly angry with any of you."

"Hey, I get it." Rai shrugged and winced at the pain in his shoulders that resulted. "This whole thing's been tiring and obnoxious, and putting up with Chase is just the icing on the cake. Everyone's limits are frayed. It's no big."

"Still … " Omi struggled to find his words, hands curling into loose fists and then uncurling again. "I should not have lashed out at you. I just … haven't been feeling well these last few days."

"You think you're getting sick?" Suddenly Kimiko was at his side, trying to feel for a fever. "That wouldn't surprise me, with all the stress and training we've been going through. Honestly I'm surprised none of us has wound up bedridden yet."

"For more'n a night, you mean."

"Obviously."

"I don't think so," Omi said, brushing Kimiko away. "This does not feel like a physical illness. More like … "

How did he put it into words - the strange, uneasy feeling in his stomach, the prickling along his bones? He knew what it felt like to catch the flu, and this wasn't the same. It was a feeling of inherent wrongness, not just illness, and he couldn't place why, and that was making him feel even worse.

" … like a sickness in my spirit," he finished, still not sure that was the right way to put it.

"Sickness in your spirit?" And now everyone was next to him, Rai leaning in to look him in the eyes more intently than was entirely comfortable. "Like as in a Heylin warlord sneaking his evil into your chi kind of sickness in the spirit?"

"Nnnno, I wouldn't say that," Omi said, leaning back a little. "I believe that would be a bit more obvious."

"He never said he wasn't gonna try that, though," Clay cut in, already looking back down the hall with a hard glare. "If he's startin' to try and turn you evil again … "

"He isn't." Omi tried to make his voice as firm as he could. "This is something different. I am certain of it." He frowned. "I just don't know _what_."

"And that's got you on edge?"

"Yes." He sighed again. "But that is no excuse for how I acted. Please accept my apologies."

"You know we always will, Omi." Rai nudged Clay down the hall again, turning his attention away from possible Heylin intentions. "We've all got off days. Just try not to bring up history around him again, cool?" He rubbed at a sore spot on his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go get some rest in before he comes back and says we're ready for round 2 whether we actually are or not."

.-.-

Master Monk Guan and Dojo didn't show up that week.

It wasn't cause for alarm, at least not initially - there had been times before when they were late by a day or two, or sometimes three. But when they didn't show up the second week, even Chase started to wonder what the issue could be, and they caught him sending out a few of his warriors to find out what was happening.

"It's not like him to miss an opportunity to judge me," he said as the warriors morphed into crows and took off, vanishing through various tiny openings in the mountainside. "At least, not without making sure I knew he was avoiding it."

"He deliberately _doesn't_ judge you sometimes?" asked Raimundo as they tried to figure out that particular conundrum.

"If he knows it will annoy me? Absolutely."

For a few more days there was nothing but silence. Omi got more and more tense as time went on, his attention distracted and his free time spent meditating or staring into pools of water. When they asked him about it, he said he was trying to clear his thoughts and focus on the task at hand, but it was clear he wasn't being very successful.

It didn't help that the crows all returned without any good news. The hidden enclaves - that Chase knew about, apparently - were as empty as the temples that had once housed everyone. Omi immediately wanted to go out and start looking for the other monks, but Chase wouldn't let him, saying that they had more important tasks to focus on.

That went over about as well as could be expected, and Omi was all but ready to storm out of the lair on his own until Raimundo reminded him of the time he himself had tried that very move and just how badly it had ended. That kept Omi from going, but only just.

"I know how you feel, Omi, but we gotta keep the bigger picture in mind." Rai offered him a slight smile, trying to be comforting. "They probably just moved to shake Hannibal off the trail. Right?" He glanced at Chase, who shrugged.

"It's the most likely possibility. Normally I'd condemn that kind of paranoia, but considering the circumstances, it's warranted." He grimaced. "As much as I hate to admit they've moved someplace I'm not aware of, they're undoubtedly more protected that way."

"There. See?" Clay clapped a hand on Omi's shoulder. "They're just stayin' safe, and it's for the best if we don't know where they went. Can't make us talk that way."

"Yes, but … " Omi grimaced down at the floor. "That doesn't explain why Master Monk Guan hasn't returned. He would have been able to do so if everyone had only moved."

"If they moved out of a fear of being found, then he's almost certainly making sure nobody catches their trail," Chase said. "And in his usual overly-cautious way, he's taking his time in doing so."

It made sense. Or at least, it was sensible, and seemed like something Guan would do. But Omi wasn't convinced, and it showed in the skeptical look he gave Chase.

"You don't think he'd at least have sent word about that, or something?" Kimiko asked.

"Not really, no. When he gets fixated on doing good, he tends to think everything else is a secondary concern at best."

There wasn't a lot more to be said about that. The fact that Chase seemed fairly certain of that being the case wasn't exactly a comfort, but it did make it seem more likely, and set some of their worries at ease. Still, Omi kept his eyes and ears out for every flap of wings - Chase had agreed to keep his minions searching for any trace of the other monks, though Clay pointed out that it was in his own interests to know where all the Xiaolin hiding places were - and was a little more disappointed and ill at ease every time he continued to hear nothing new.

He didn't feel any better, either. There was still a weight in his bones he couldn't dismiss, and it was getting in the way of his training no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. He couldn't be happy with any progress they were making because it was hard to focus on anything other than the possible fate of Master Fung and Dojo and all the temple monks.

But they were making progress, at least. Even Chase had outright admitted it once or twice, after the fight with Wuya at the temple. His friends' pride in that kept him from getting too depressed, and sometimes even distracted him enough to let him get in a little decent sleep.

It seemed like everything was at least going to maintain, after another week and a half. There had still been no word from Guan, but Chase's confidence in his assumption kept worse worries at bay. He put them through more and more rigorous training, including the unwanted _bagua_ tactics again, and seemed to actually approve of their improvements instead of being casually dismissive (though he was still as disdainful as ever, but that wasn't exactly a surprise anymore).

And then, one day, right before they were about to launch another attack on his tigers, he held up a hand. Everyone paused.

"Something wrong?" asked Rai, not shifting out of his ready position. The tigers were giving him a particularly hungry look.

"In a sense." Chase sniffed the air and grimaced. "Your stance is off. We've discussed this. Style is no excuse for improper balance. Correct it."

"What? Oh, come on, you agreed with me - if it helps me not fall on my face three moves into the fight, a little leniency on that kind of thing is okay!"

"There's a difference between being lenient and being wrong." He started to pace around them but, they noticed, also _away_ from them. His eyes were moving from them to the edges of the room, lingering along one edge in particular. "I didn't agree with you completely. Remember that what I'm teaching you is at least partly based on the intention of not getting every bone in your body broken."

"Yeah, I know. You keep saying that." Rai gave Chase a suspicious look. "Is this some kind of weird mind game where you try to distract us with pointless nitpicking while your cats get in a few potshots?"

"No, but that's an interesting idea."

Everyone groaned. Kimiko gave Rai a dark look.

"Great job," she hissed.

"Oh, come _on_ - "

Chase's hand shot out - but toward the wall. It hit something that let out muffled squeak. Omi stared as he gripped thin air, then looked down to a shadow hovering where nothing was present to cast it. Or, he realized, not quite a shadow. It looked more like the lower half of a pair of dark boots.

Strangely familiar boots.

"Jack Spicer?" he said out loud.

There was a weird digital flickering in the air around Chase's hand, and suddenly there was Jack, shrouded head-to-almost-toe in a black coat and mask, scrabbling at the hand cutting off most of his air supply. With a very deliberate reluctance, Chase shifted his grip down to the collar of the jacket, leaving Jack to pull off the mask and gasp for air, leaving his hair even more of a mess than usual.

"What in blazes are _you_ doin' here?" Clay asked, the tigers forgotten.

"Eavesdropping?" Jack tried to sound condescending but didn't quite manage it on the heels of almost being asphyxiated. "You know, villain stuff. What else did you expect?"

"Can't say I really know."

"I'm curious to know how you got in here without alerting my sentries," Chase said testily, his grip on the jacket tightening. "And don't even try to say it was your natural villainous skill."

"But what if it was?" Jack looked between them all, and his face fell. "Okay, fine. It was only partly that. The rest was this baby, right here." He patted the jacket fondly and started undoing the zipper. "It's a prototype invisibility fabric I 'borrowed' from the military and improved on. Cuts out any and all visible light signatures, including thermal ones, _and_ your shadow." Underneath he was wearing his usual outfit, including his usual jacket, which was now crushed into a wrinkled mess. "They were calling it Quantum Stealth, which is pretty cool, but it lacks a really _evil_ feel. I was thinking - "

"I don't care." Chase lifted him off the ground a few inches. "Your spiritual presence alone should have set off every last alarm I had."

"I've got shields!"

"That doesn't even begin to explain it."

"How'd you see me, anyway?" Jack squirmed and managed to get his toes back on the floor again. "This thing was perfect!"

"I didn't. I smelled you. It's a very … _unique_ smell."

"And your shoes," Omi pointed out. "They were not properly disguised."

"What? Are you kidding me? I thought I made this long enough!"

"Guess not." Kimiko gave him an evaluating once-over, her disapproval of his style choices very clear. "You steal military-grade technology and you can't even use it to completely hide yourself?"

"Hey! Do you know how hard it is to integrate delicate material like this into everyday wear to camouflage shoes?" He glared at her scowl. "I didn't think so!"

"_Enough._" Chase lifted Jack back off the ground. "What are you actually doing here, Spicer?"

"I told you, villain stuff!"

The force of five glares fried him where he dangled.

" … well, uh, and I was just, you know, dropping by? To see how you were doing?"

"Spyin' for Hannibal, you mean," said Clay, cracking his knuckles.

"No no no! He hasn't sent me up here to spy on you at all!" Jack waved his hands frantically. "I don't think he wants me coming anywhere near here! He just wants me to do his chores and stuff!"

"Really." Chase leaned in and sniffed again, sneering with razorlike teeth as he did so. "That wouldn't be a surprise, but I have some serious doubts about it anyway." He leaned back. "You've been at the Xiaolin Temple."

"What!" Omi stormed forward and glared up at Jack. "What sort of villainy have you been up to while we were gone, Jack Spicer? Tell us now!"

"Or what?" He paused, remembering who was holding him three inches off the ground with one hand. "He's got me trying to break into the temple vault, but I haven't done it yet. I'm getting close, though," he added, as though that would help matters.

"Oh yeah? You want us to believe that?" Kimiko's hands gleamed with potential fire, only cooling when Chase gave her a disapproving glance.

"Do you think I'd be here if I had all the Wu?" Jack's expression was one of disdain and unhappy acceptance of the fact that he hadn't succeeded where he was certain he should have. "That's not even what he's looking for. He just said to get in there and get back to him with whatever I found, but I overheard him talking about something else that was apparently hidden in there."

"I knew it," Rai breathed. "He's looking for an artifact, isn't he."

"Maybe? He was pretty vague about it." Carefully, Jack tried to slip out of his overcoat and get to the floor, but Chase only hefted him higher. "Look, that's seriously all I know."

"And I still haven't heard a good reason for why you're here." Chase narrowed his eyes at Jack. "Spying, whether for yourself or for Hannibal, is hardly something I would expect you to risk your life for, especially considering how little you were probably privy to."

"Well … " Jack glanced casually at the ceiling. "I _may_ have run across something at the Temple recently that _might_ be of interest to some of you."

"At the temple?" Omi made a jump to try and grab Jack by the lapels and glare him in the eye, but Chase moved him out of reach, so he had to be satisfied giving Jack's ribcage a stern glower from below. "If you do not tell us what you found - "

"Hey, hey, I'm not gonna not tell you. I've got it with me." He squirmed again to no avail. "But I don't really think a good evildoer would just hand it over. Maybe if you make a little trade with me … "

They all stared at him. Then Chase reached into his undercoat and felt around for a moment, eventually producing a torn-up scroll tied with coarse string. He gave it a studying look before handing it to Omi, who ripped off the string and unrolled it. Rai, Kimiko, and Clay all crowded around him to read it, and Omi felt hope rising in his heart when he saw the handwriting was Master Fung's.

It smashed into a thousand pieces when he got to the second line.

_Young monks,_

_We have been attacked._

_Hannibal Roy Bean has struck out at our hidden enclaves without warning. He has used ancient artifacts to empower himself and break through our defenses. There have been casualties. We are scattered to the winds._

_But out of this, we have made gains. We now know where he is hiding, and we can predict where he intends to perform his ritual. Though this has been a grievous setback, we will still persevere._

_When the time is right, Master Monk Guan will bring you all that we know, and I know that you will use it to stop Hannibal before he can unleash this terrible evil._

_Remember that the world depends on you, and that our hope is with you always._

_Master Fung_

"Casualties?" said Kimiko weakly.

"Wait, what?" Jack stared at them.

"It's from Master Fung." Very carefully, Raimundo stepped back and looked away. "He said Hannibal attacked them. That's why we haven't heard from anyone for so long."

Silently, Chase dropped Jack and took the scroll from Omi's unprotesting hands. He looked over the paper critically, ran a hand across the fine, spidery handwriting, and his expression hardened just slightly.

"D'you think it's a fake?" Clay tentatively reached down to steady Omi, who hadn't moved. "He was tryin' to fool us before this all started with an act like that."

"No." Chase handed the scroll over to Rai. "If it was his work, it would stink like the pits he crawled from, and I can find none of that." He glanced at Jack, who was standing up and brushing himself off. "No more than I did already, anyway."

"We have to go." said Omi suddenly.

There was silence for a moment as they all looked at him in various shades of surprise.

"Go where?" asked Rai, though his mind was already racing ahead with the answers, with the realization of what was going to happen next.

"To find them." Omi's voice was flat and emotionless, coming from somewhere empty in him. "They need our help."

"No, they don't," Chase said, unusually soft for him, but that didn't stop Omi from rounding on him in a sudden explosion of tension and fury.

"Yes, they do! Don't try to say otherwise! Hannibal _attacked_ them! He is no longer biding his time in the shadows like you said he would! He has acted, and now it is our time to act as well!" One finger leveled itself at Chase's face, trembling slightly. "We are going to find them, and we are going to do it right now!"

"Omi - " But Kimiko's words never got further than that; her tone of voice, worried and hesitant, made Omi shake his head and interrupt her.

"_I_ will go to find them, then! On my own if I must! I will not stay away while they might be attacked again!"

"You're not going anywhere." It was a dangerous hiss from Chase, and it did nothing to dissuade Omi; if anything, it made him angrier.

"Yes, I am! And you cannot stop me, Chase Young! I know you do not care for anyone, and think no-one else should, and I will not try to change your mind, because I know a tiger's stripes do not so easily change to spots! But I will go, and that is that!"

Jack, having made his way around the argument to where Clay, Raimundo, and Kimiko were watching, idly pulled off his jacket and folded it over one arm.

"He means 'a leopard can't change its spots', right?" he mused, to which Clay responded by reaching over to clamp a hand over his mouth.

"Don't make me repeat myself." There was a gleam in Chase's eye that didn't bode well. "Your task is to train here, no matter what. If you run off to try and help them, and Hannibal attacks again, what good will you be? You haven't finished learning anything here, and if even those wizened old men can't fend him off, you will do nothing but doom the world with your impetuousness."

"I don't care!" Omi turned his back to Chase and started toward the archway on the other side of the ring, where a few slender feline shadows were already lining up to keep him in.

"Stop."

He didn't.

"Omi. _Stop._" Chase sighed. "I will let you leave on one condition."

This time, Omi stopped, trembling in anger. He glanced back over his shoulder at Chase, ready to leave regardless of whatever that condition was.

Chase pointed to the ground in front of him.

"Fight me." In contrast to Omi, he was perfectly still and, on the surface, completely calm. "If you can defeat me in single combat, I will consider your training complete and permit you to go find the rest of the monks."

There was silence.

And then there wasn't.

A rush of wind blew back everyone's hair as Omi flung himself across the room with a yell, one heel aimed directly at Chase's chest. Chase dodged it, ducked under Omi as he passed, and slid across the floor to avoid a second sharp blow that came within inches of his head.

The rest of them retreated to the edge of the ring, barely able to blink as they watched the two fight like demons.

"There's no way he can win," Kimiko said, wincing at a crash. "He's worn out and upset! This is just going to make things worse."

"He's sure tryin', though," Clay pointed out as Chase narrowly avoided another strike. "I just wish there was somethin' we could do."

"What _can_ we do?" Rai curled his hands into fists. "I don't think he's going to listen to anyone, even us. And honestly, I don't blame him." He looked back at the scroll, clenched tight between his fingers. "Hannibal making a move like this … "

There was another crash and a shattering of stone. Omi pulled himself out of the wreckage of a pillar and lunged at Chase again.

"We can try to talk him out of it." Kimiko winced again at a third crash. "When this is over, I mean."

"_If_ this ends." Rai unrolled the scroll again, but didn't read the words. "I don't know if he'll put up with sticking around. He might just keep trying to leave, and Chase is gonna have to put him through the wall again and again."

"So nothin' new, really?" Clay tried to smile, but it was weak and momentary.

"You know what I'm saying." It was painful watching Omi fight like he was, but none of them could think of doing anything else. "I've never seen him this mad. Not even when he was evil."

"And he never really gives up," added Kimiko. "This probably means more to him than anything else. Maybe we should back him up?"

"We can't." Rai's voice was flat and serious. "I know how he feels. I've done the dumb things he wants to do, guys, and even if it makes me a hypocrite to say it, we have to keep him from going. Making sure Master Fung and Dojo and all the rest of them are okay is more important to him than the end of the world, but … "

They fell silent again and watched Omi attack over and over, with Chase dodging every blow. A lot of them were close. Some even grazed him. One landed, hard, against his upper arm, and he momentarily bared his teeth in a snarl.

"He's not hittin' back," Clay pointed out. "He's lettin' Omi wear himself out. This ain't a real fight."

"Yeah," said Rai, "I know."

Omi had noticed it, too. He'd been granted strength and energy by his anger, but it wasn't going to last forever, and when he landed from a strike he wobbled visibly.

"This is not a fight, Chase Young!" he spat. "You are only avoiding me! Unsuccessfully! I demand you take this seriously!"

"I'm giving you a chance to reconsider." Chase's pupils thinned at the observation.

"I will not! I will never!" Omi was struggling to catch his breath, but there was nothing in his voice other than absolute determination. "If you will not fight me, then I will go! And even if you do, I will win! You cannot keep me from this! I won't let you. I won't - "

Chase was a blur when he moved, a streak of black and gold crossing the space between himself and Omi too fast for even their eyes to follow. His forearm practically appeared pressed into Omi's stomach, cutting off his words and knocking all the breath from his lungs. For a second they both stood there, frozen, as time caught up with light; then Omi sagged over Chase's arm, all the fight flooding out of him.

Clay and Kimiko made it to his side before Raimundo did, with Jack trailing behind. Chase handed him off to them and straightened up.

"You sure took your time with that," Kimiko grumbled, making sure Omi was both still conscious and still breathing, and had to be satisfied with only the latter. "Why do you have to make a show out of everything?"

"So he could see the folly of his actions. If I'd simply shut him down, physically or not, he'd be gone in a few hours, and everything would be jeopardized. At best, he would have ignored all future training." Chase rubbed the feeling back into his arm. "Now he knows he still can't beat me, and that, I think, will dissuade him from his course more than anything."

"And if it doesn't?" Clay gently picked Omi up, glaring at Chase.

"Then I will have to do it again." The tone of his voice said that he didn't exactly relish the opportunity. "As I doubt any of you would be willing to volunteer to be the ones to stand in his way."

"Maybe we would." Rai gave Chase a level look. "Maybe getting sense knocked into him by people he trusts would put him back on the right path."

Chase looked at him for a long moment without speaking. Then he inclined his head a little, not exactly smiling but definitely approving.

"A distinct possibility. If he tries that again, I'll leave it to you first and foremost." He held out his hand; they stared blankly. "The scroll. Though your masters claim to know where Hannibal is, I want to determine that for myself, and I can at least make contact with them through it. Plus I'm quite certain all of you want some direct confirmation of all this for yourselves."

Rai gave him the scroll. He looked it over for a moment, speaking as he did so.

"Fung isn't dead. This much makes it obvious. Neither is Guan, a fact I can guarantee; if he died, I would know in an instant." There was a flicker of something dark on Chase's face. "When Omi wakes, tell him that, and remind him of his duty as the potential Xiaolin Dragon of Water."

He turned away, and Rai watched as he disappeared down one of the halls for long enough that Kimiko tapped him on the arm.

"Hey. We need to get Omi back to his room and make sure he's okay."

"Oh, yeah. Right. You guys go on ahead." She raised an eyebrow at him, and he jerked a thumb in Jack's direction. "I wanna make sure quantum dumb over there doesn't get any bright ideas about sticking around."

Once they were a little ways away, he turned to Jack, who readied a sneer.

"Thanks."

The potential sneer dropped.

"You're … welcome? Wait, are you serious?"

"I mean it, dude. Thanks for bringing that all the way here." Sneaking out from under Hannibal's gaze, finding the scroll in the temple, not opening it, flying it all the way to Chase's isolated lair and almost getting his head ripped off by the man himself … Rai didn't believe for a second he'd done it just to gloat or try and make some sort of evil trade with them for it. "I guess Omi's got the right idea about you - you're really not as evil as you try to be."

"Oh, sure, rub it in," Jack grumbled, unfolding his overcoat and shaking the dust from the fight off of it. "I do _one thing_ that Hannibal probably doesn't want me to do, and you just _have_ to point it out."

"I was kinda surprised you hadn't read it."

"I was going to, but … " Jack's expression went grim. " … look, let's just say that I had my reasons."

"Afraid of karmic backlash?"

"Not even close, loser. Whoever left that scroll in the temple left a note for me, too, and it was too polite to _not_ be a threat."

"So … karmic backlash," repeated Rai, who could easily imagine the kind of entirely unthreatening threatening note Master Fung would leave for someone like Jack.

"Whatever. I'm going. I've got work to do." He started to turn away, but Rai stopped him.

"Hey, Jack - "

"Huh?"

"Whatever you're doing for Hannibal, you should stop. Go home and try to stay out of this." He tried to put as much seriousness into his voice as he could, even though Jack didn't exactly inspire it. "It's getting dangerous. He's not going to give you any rewards for being on his side if he goes through with this."

Jack eyed him warily.

"Aren't you supposed to stop him?"

"That's the plan, but … look, he's already killed people. Pretty sure none of us wants to see you get the same treatment, even if you are a pain in the neck."

"Real nice." But Jack hesitated nonetheless, fiddling with the edges of the overcoat in thought. "Ditching him now probably isn't the best idea, but I'll see what I can do."

After he'd started the helipack and hovered away - just out of reach, to the tigers' chagrin - Rai put his hands in his pockets and headed for Omi's room.

"Best we can hope for, I guess."

.-.-

When Omi came to, there was a moment of surprise, and anger, and a half-made demand to get right back to the fight, but the massive to-be-bruise across his stomach winded him a second time and brought him back to reality, to everyone's relief.

"I must apologize, my friends." He stared down at his hands, pale against the dark bedspread. "You know I was raised at that temple. I do not know my real family. Master Fung, and Dojo, and everyone there - _they_ are my family, and have been for as long as I can remember. And similarly, I have always thought they were … well, immortal. Monks of legend, who taught me the secrets that so few know."

It was rare that any of them saw the other temple monks doing much other than cleaning, or studying, or praying, so it was strange to try and imagine them the way Omi did, but for once nobody made a comment.

"When Wuya brought Mala Mala Jong back to life, and he attacked the temple, I realized this was not the case. It was the first time I truly understood that they were old men, who could be hurt and … die. And now … "

"Now Hannibal made all that real." Kimiko, sitting on the edge of the bed, curled her hands into fists against the covers. "Oh, Omi, I'm so sorry. That's why you got so angry."

"Yes. I couldn't help it. This illness I have felt - I know it was my instincts telling me that they were in danger. I knew it was going to happen! And I did nothing!"

"I don't doubt your instincts, Omi, but there's no way you coulda done anything to stop this. Not even if you'd heard it yelled loud and clear from across the room," said Clay, an immovable presence at the bedside just in case Omi tried to get up again. "Actin' on a gut feeling ain't always the best plan, either. I hate to agree with Chase, but if they couldn't fight him off, I don't think you would have done a whole lot, either."

Omi's shoulders drooped. They all knew Clay was right. None of them would have made a difference in that fight. Maybe all of them together, but not alone.

"If there'd been a way to stop him, Omi, you know we would have gone with you to do it, whether Chase said we could or not." Rai leaned on the end of the bed, arms folded across his chest. "You can't blame yourself for this."

"Yes, I can," said Omi, but he was smiling a little when he looked up. "But I suppose you will not let me do so too much."

"Darn right," Clay agreed. "We'll get back at Hannibal for this, you got our word for it."

Chase sent word, after a while - he'd gotten a response: another reassurance from Master Fung, and a handful of names, a few that Omi recognized with pain. They wondered how all this had happened. Hadn't Hannibal been weak and helpless? Had he used the Moby Morpher to some horrible effect? What kind of artifacts had he stolen and used against the enclaves? Not even Chase was fully certain, but they thought Guan might know, and hoped he would show up again sooner rather than later.

It hardened their resolve. It had been months since they thought this was just another end of the world scare. Now they knew, more than anything, that Hannibal had to be taken down for good.

The only questions left were: how much longer would they have to wait until it was time to fight?

And would they be able to do it?

.-.-

Blood on the earth. Death in the air. Smoke in the flames. Darkness in the water.

Hannibal laid out the last few runes and smiled, deep in the shadows.


End file.
